A few things that have made me go <3 in the last month or two:

Square1 feat. Siobhan Donaghy: Styfling (Square1 & CalCuts Remix)
This is both the biggest one and almost the most recent one: straight from The Vids Are Alright to the top of the pile! It's currently nestled at no. #2 in my '09-so-far top list, but it's rather threatening to overtake The-Dream's top spot before very long at all. (Aka: YES I REALLY AM A BIG OL' GOTH AT HEART FOREVER AND EVER.)

Joker: Do It
Jokerrrrrrr you do continue w/ the being awesome! One of the grime/dubstep superstar's latest, and bloody hell I just missed getting this 12'' because when anything BIG hits the store I mostly get my dubstep from, it's usually sold out before the "new in!" email even hits my inbox.* XD; (This also happened with Calm Down when it finally got a -- apparently very limited -- release, ahah.)

*) Which makes it such an amazing thing I managed to score the super-limited Burial/Four Tet 12! Even I gotta get lucky sometimes, I guess. :D

Luomo feat. Apparat: Love You All
So usually Luomo's material elicits only a 'ehhh, it's nice enough I guess' from me* (sorry cis!), but then I heard this! And I was all 'OMG!!' and instantly went off and gave Convivial a listen. ...it turned out that my general reaction was still much the same, so I guess it was just the application of Apparat on that specific track that made the difference. XD (Nb: this is now THREE Apparat-related tracks on my shortlist. XD; Well, strictly speaking it's three with the one further below, since this was no. #2, but hey.)

*) yet interestingly, Symptoms is well on its way to being one of my albums of the year -- if in large part because I CANNOT DECIDE HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT. Is it Real Love? Is it just like? NO MAN CAN TELL. Which obviously means I keep endlessly returning to it, like a puzzle whose solution is only just out of reach.

Two Fingers feat. Sway: Two Fingers
DEFINITELY one of my favourite albs of the year, though, is Two Fingers' self titled (see my 'LISTEN TO THIS' post at poptimists for some convenient links'n such </lazy>). Lovely Amon Tobin + d'n'b old hand Doubleclick + (on abt 80% of the tracks) Sway, I'M JUST SAYING. It's even more amazing than that sounds. 'What You Know' is technically my favourite track (and the one that's comfortably sitting in my top ten of the year), but I just love how purely, unmistakably Tobiny this one is. <3 <3! Also, WHAT BASSWEIGHT. Heeeaart.

John Legend feat. Kanye West: It's Over
As much as I am all about the studio trickery and cool noises, I do fall like crazy for sheer simple songcraft now and then as well. (Pls see: my intense love affair with Ne-Yo's output as a songwriter.) And BLOODY HELL does this one have it in spades. I was quite surprised when Green Light ended up not being my favourite track on Evolver, honestly (because oh, I do so love Green Light).

The Kanye verse, though: kinda rub. XD;

Chrisette Michele: Another One
And speaking of songcraft and Ne-Yo: god, the man can write a deceptively simple, sing-alongTASTIC hook. There's something so down-to-earth about his patented sound; I think this is why the realization of his track on Doll Domination didn't really work for me, because the breathy, ethereal voice Nicole adopted for it just sounded off on that melody. Chrisette Michele, however, fits it as perfectly as Ne-Yo himself, and sings the HELL out of this one. (Nb: in absence of a new Ne-Yo album, Epiphany fills in nicely: he's got credits on almost half a dozen of the tracks. XD Even does backing vocals on a couple of them!)

Technically -- as in on-a-technical-level literally -- I actually prefer the title track/first single, but this one is such a tour-de-force showcase of Ne-Yo's songcraft at its most basic that it pips it in the end.

Disclaimer: as much as it may read like it, I do not remotely like Epiphany as much as I do only because of Ne-Yo's involvement -- several of my favourite tracks had nothing to do with him, and everything! But I will not deny it helps. XD

Ellen Allien & Apparat: Do Not Break
As I am pretty much the LAST PERSON ON THE PLANET to hear Orchestra of Bubbles, I will assume everyone (interested) will have heard this one already, but hey! I will just say this: sometimes I am moved to wonder HOW IT'S EVEN BIOLOGICALLY POSSIBLE FOR MUSIC TO BE THIS GOOD; those times, the music in question will often sound very much like this.

Maga Bo feat. Bigg: 3akel
And lastly, the freshest one to the shortlist. This one's pretty much called 'why it's occasionally a Very Good Idea to surf around Boomkat samples just for the hell of it'. It's a pity the rest of the album (though excellent!) isn't remotely this raw and towering.

So it is currently OMG HOT -- well, indoors under horrid heat-collecting roofs it is, anyway; work has been hellishly sauna-like the last week or so, ugh. Either way, here is a LOVELY THING OF LOVELINESS I've been making to counteract the godawfulness:

Needed:

1 mixer

1 ripe mango
abt half a fruit's worth of lime juice
1 half - 1 red chili (removal of seeds advisable purely for a more pleasant consistency)
abt a quarter liter of water
if imbibing imminent, a few ice cubes may also be a fine addition

MIX THAT SHIT UP

POUR UP & CHUG

Beside being wonderfully refreshing, it is also TOTALLY DELISH. Mmmmmmnum. (Pls see how I totally just chugged the entire load I made to bring to work tomorrow, ahaha. I could make more, of course, but I already rinsed out the mixer once. XD;)

Also, another random recipe:

( Mutton mince meatball & eggplant stewy thingy )

(Look, no condiment pun this year! Ahahaha. Mind, this is pretty much only because I stole both title and partial track pool from another half-planned mix, snerk...)

Er part one of three, because apparently not even summer mixes are safe from my flights into high-concept fancy! XD; Ideally the time split on the parts would have been ~ 30/40/30 mins or about, but inevitably that was not to be. (I am as long-winded in my mix-making as I am in my prose!, hahaha.) This part: 1h of music for chilling at the beach in the bright midday sun; thoroughly mixed genres.

DL and stream

( tracklist )


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In completely other news: there's somehow something very strange about getting into, you know, THE ORIGINAL SLASH PAIRING, omg. At least getting into it a decade into one's slasher's career, ahah. I totally managed to dodge the event horizon of reboot!Trek -- I liked the film okay, but I didn't get any kind of fannish impulses from it* -- but the thing is, reboot!Trek has inevitably lead a lot of people to TOS, and there've been, y'know, EPISODE REVIEWS and stuff, and before I knew it I was acquiring dvd sets and JESUS CHRIST HOW HOOKED AM I? Also: crushes. SERIOUS crushes. <3 <3

(For full disclosure, I actually grew up on Trek (the movies! Next Gen! :D!); it wasn't until the mid-late 90s that I turned to the Star Wars side of the Force. Never saw more than a handful of TOS eps before, though, due mainly to lack of easy opportunity.)


At least this time it wasn't yet another Yuletide-qualified fandom, ahahaha.


*) I actually need to post more extensively about this, sometime when I don't need to be SLEEPING, omgself. Actually, I need to do a wholesale personal fandom retrospective, because I've been wanting to for a fair while, and it'd sort of slot nicely into the framework of that. :D

Dear universe: having any attempt I make to give new people a chance end up in intense social awkward is NOT the way to support my decision to try renewing my social life. No, srsly. Do you want me to remain a lamer hermit who only ever talks to people on the internet? (Not that I even do much of that these days! :D)

This is totally some kind of karmic balancing for the Week of Awesome I had last week, I just know it (ahahahaha). I mean, twice in the span of one week? Really?

So I made fauxjoada on Tuesday, and OMG I AM GOING TO BE EATING THAT SHIT FOR A WEEK. And that's at only half volume! Protip: do not make this dish in anything but radically reduced quantities if you'll be the only one eating it. XD;; (Four words: FILLING AS ALL HELL, omg.)

Gonnabeeatingitforeverness aside, it's bloody delicious, even with extremely cobbled-together, only marginally appropriate ingredients. (I was going roughly by the Food Safari recipe; the only actually prescribed meat I managed to track down in a cursory sweep was the bacon, ahaha. (Ended up accompanied by plain beef and salami, in case anyone's curious.))

Not entirely although sort of relatedly: only thing wrong about all the cooking shows I've been watching this year -- other than the fact that I can't do it without ending up banging about the kitchen for something to creatively cook RIGHT THEN* -- is that it's made me into a TOTAL FRESH-PRODUCE SNOB. Seriously! I have all these poor veggie mixes lounging about the freezer, getting no love, because I keep turning up my nose at the thought of using them. XD; And I'm starting to consider getting my fish and meats fresh, too! HELLLLP.


In yet other food-related news, another recipe:

( Calorie Calamity brownie mod )


--
*) This is how the cabbage nests happened, as a matter of fact XD

Oh man, my schedule the next couple of days is going to be insane. XD; ( To wit: )

Oat toast crutons, green asparagus, leek, fried crispy, zero seasoning*: OMG YUM.

*) beyond what flavour is provided by the cooking oil, anyway


Choir festival opening tomorrow! I AM WELL EXCITED.

So I don't show it much up in here, but I am a total cooking FOOL. I am very much of the throw whatever ingredients I have in the house at each other and see how it comes out school, but now and then the result is good enough that I make a point of noting down what went into it. Main reason I don't get around to posting any of the resulting recipes is the fact that, well, I cook in Swedish and/or Finnish, so to speak, and digging up translations for all those ingredients/procedures is a well hefty hurdle for someone as lazy as me. XD (Esp when, as with my Totally Brilliant Dinner Salad, one of the key ingredients is prob not even acquirable outside of this country, ahaha.)

But! I've kind of decided to get over the lazy enough to translate at least my best recipes, so that I may share them with the world. First up is actually my latest, come up with only the other week:

( Cabbage Nests )

(Bloody hell I had to click around before I found a site that was listing the full final votes. Should've known to go to the main fan source first thing!)

Just to get it overwith: DID I NOT SAY LANDSLIDE? I THINK I DID. >:D

Estonia came in 6th! \o/!! And France landed a top ten position, HOORAY! (I voted like a FIEND for the two, to the point where after I was done throwing a couple-three votes at my lesser favourites I only got one vote in for Norway in the last 15 seconds. XD; GOOD THING THEY DIDN'T NEED MY HELP EH.) Also: Armenia scoring the last top ten position by a hair, hoorayx2!

( rest cut for BORINGNESS! )

Woo, three of my favourites (That Are Not Norway) are in the top ten! Good show EU!

(Ahaha Norway are about to break 300 PTS FCKIN HELL. I do like it when Europe listens to me, innit. :D (Mind, I will say the performance tonight was not as good as in the semi, but!))

Seriously, though, dear Europe: what UP w/ the UK love, fr srs? I = WELL BAFFLED.


PS: and there went the 300-pt mark before I even got this posted. Ha!

Bloody hell, I just looked at the final lineup: Saturday is going to be AMAZING. From #3 on to The One That's Going to Win (or Europe's INSANE), there's never a run of more than two songs in a row that I don't love. Finding spots for toilet breaks will be hard, ahaha! (Well okay there's always Denmark, innit, which -- no lie -- I had to leave the room for yesterday evening because AUUUGH THE UNBEARABLE TEDIOUSNESS. *snerk*)


I was going to be lazy and leave the Thursday commentary till the inevitable pre-show post tomorrow again, but since I'm posting on the subject anyway! woo!:

Re: the or Europe's INSANE: FR SRS. I mean, entirely beyond the choon being right properly awesome, Alexander Rybak had such a grounded, solid presence, such incredible contact with the audience/viewer, that he made every other contestant look like an amateur. If he doesn't win by a fucking LANDSLIDE on Saturday, then...then, just, EUURGH, EUROPE.

No fashion horrors in line with Iceland's crime against optic nerves everywhere last night, BUT there was a stage show that was even creepier than Armenia's -- and not in the "AWESOME!" way, but in the "OMGWTFF no really WTFF??" kind of way:



(Again lacking the full AAA WTF impact due to lack of final makeup: a brief glimpse of the dancers in their full face-painted glory can be caught at 7:19 in this video. Mind, the real bringer of the disturbing in the performance was Sequined Green Full-Body Gimp Suit Guy, but the goblin facepaint on the secondary dancers certainly helped set the mood. XD;)

SRSLY. WTF WERE THEY THINKING? XD;;;

Aand tonight the thumbs are up for:


Favourite in the betting pools with good reason! His vocal mannerisms grate a bit when they get excessive (as esp. in the first verse in above performance; hopefully he'll have dialled it down tonight), but as soon as he touches bow to strings, ALL SINS ARE FORGOTTEN. (Also, will almost certainly have an advantage in the hormonal teenage voter camp, hahaha.)


My love comes with reservations: the verse is all REAL PROPER MODERN YOUNG PERSON'S DANCING MUSICS OMG AWESOME, and then it goes all standard Eurovision dancepop in the chorus, booo. If they'd stuck to their guns this would have been my unquestioned favourite this year, but I recognize I am not the demographic they need to appeal to here. XD


BANGIN'. :D


Because going into why I love this so much would take all evening (mostly due to the intensely basic, intuitive place it comes from, read: what, I'm supposed to be able to describe it through the medium of anything beyond aimless flapping of my hands? XD), I'm just going to say: look at her amazing, perfect face! And her hair! Eeeeeeeee.

Other things competing tonight that I'm down with:
Croatia - ahahaha the background girls in the video, with the lazily flapping dresses and the tight groupings, come off TOTALLY Brides of Dracula. XD Poss my favourite ballad this year, though (assuming the Patricia Kaas doesn't count, that is *swoooon*). With the sweeping and the melodrama! :D
Serbia - everybody hates this one! :D It's nice to be contrary sometimes. I don't know, I think it's got a great, easy groove going on, and the chorus is totally catchy, as little as anyone else in the world agrees. :D
(Of course, I also liked the universally denigrated Czech and Bulgarian entries in Tuesday's batch, so my taste is clearly on the questionable side this year. XD)

--

I half considered liveblogging on Tuesday (pls see: first year of having portably-be-netted laptop, etc!), but as I ended up with all of whopping two instances of commentary, it didn't really happen. XD Still, this doesn't mean ya'll escape my measly two comments, muahahahaha:

Armenia's stage show = awesomely unintentionally creepy, omg. To wit (if somewhat imperfectly, due to lack of dramatic makeup worn on the actual night in below video):


Between the costumes, the lighting, the makeup and the blocking, they totally came off as sinister earth spirits that will seduce you to dance until you DIE FROM EXHAUSTION. Awesome. (And kind of appropriate to the subject matter of the song, hee.)

Elsewhere, the uncontested fashion crime of the evening came courtesy of Iceland. OMG FIRE YOUR STYLIST RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW. (I'd like to express the hope that she'd wear a different dress on Saturday -- I'm just saying, I had to avert my eyes from the horror, freals -- but I doubt I'm that lucky. XD;;)

(Mum is very fond of the song, regardless, but for me -- in addition to the fact that I would have found it quite dull anyway -- it suffers from far too close (chronologically speaking) comparison to a much better ballad of the (almost) same name by a much better artist. Doomed from the get-go!)

Choons I will be rooting for tonight:


:D! :D! :D!


<3 <3 <3


:o

(And you know us obv. :D)


First semifinal is kinda rubbish, honestly (above entries aside, obv). Mind, this may work well in our favour, innit!

Proof that my dealers/the post office totally have it in for me:

VS.

In the mailbox! on the SAME DAY! DON'T THEY CARE THAT I NEED TO BE ABLE TO DECIDE WHAT TO instantly throw at an alarming velocity at the player LISTEN TO FIRST? *EMO*

(Okay, so I did throw Ciara on first, by simple dint of it being the package I opened first, but I didn't even get through the second track before starting to twitch with the tempation to switch cds. XD;; Because, I mean, THE NEW BOXCUTTER!!!! But on the other hand, I've been waiting for Fantasy Ride for fucking EVER, so it breaks cold-sweat-inducingly even, innit.)



Also PS: VACATION WOOOOOOOO! I am going to do SO MUCH GARDENING. :D :D :D :D (And also hopefully some porn, ahahem. Also, the choir festival, since I for once have such an excellent opportunity! :D)

Q: What do you do when you can't decide between two potential titles?
A: Use both!
(A, addendum: If, that is, you are a JUMBO TOOL RACK.)

Second of those mixes from last year I brought up way back here (and also in passing in the previous post). Title prob says all as to what the sonic theme is, so I will get right down to the nitty (and also the gritty), ie:

DL and stream;

( tracklist: )

Dude dude dude dude, the picture chosen for this Singles Jukebox post FILLS ME WITH HAPPY. NEEEEEEE-YOOOOOOOO. <3 <3 XD

--

In other news: here, let's pretend I actually got off my ass about posting this stuff in February!

a: more mixes I re-uploaded apprx. 50 000 months ago:
Seeking Eurydice (the Somewhat Better Mixed Version)
and Bosh mix ed. 2005

(Ruddy hell, I'm starting to be impressively close to having them all re-upped now! :o Essentially just the ones that I don't have single-file versions of lying around left, by now.)


b: Really really (REALLY) belated 2008-year-end listage, pt. 1:

( 08 singles top 20 )

( 08 dubstep top 10 )

( 08 albs top 15 )

( films seen in (but not necessarily, or in fact mostly, made in) 08 top 20 )

I'd be tempted to say "possibly to have blurbs added to them in time!", but we all know how that goes. XD

You know, I'd heard mumblings re: A Silver Mt. Zion having gone rubbish, but WOW. XD;; I kinda want my money back!


Surprise rubbish aside, here, have a mini !mixtape of Stuff I've Been Grooving on Lately (aka APRIL SHORTLIST ADDITIONS):

M83: 0078h (2003)
So the problem with it being LAST YEAR OF THE DECADE, thereby making me get crazy Albs-of-Decade (and even Tracks-of-Decade, ye elder gods!) Top List crazyschemes, is that it's hit me how VERY MUCH STUFF that cld very possibly be eligible for such an list I've not heard (esp in the much-beloved but poorly explored bleepy-n-synthy stuff category, on account of this being the exact type of stuff that tends only to be available to me as full-price imports, and pls see: not having had anything resembling A Proper Income until last year, and all that). This, needless to say, is proving Very Bad for my economy. XD; Not that this has anything to do with this track, other than it being the reason it's come into my possession at all, ahah.

But it is loud and yowly in that M83 way, and kind of breakneck, and oh my god those cut-up vocal bits! Seriously, this thing is like made of endorphins and sunshine. <3 <3 <3

Apparat: Arcadia (2007)
Tangential ponderings/observations re: the pertient album as a whole:
a) so were Apparat always so postrocky, or did that only happen with Walls? (I know I don't remember any such leanings from the tracks I'd previously heard, but then I haven't listened to them in a couple of years, either...)
b) Title in spite, this is an album best experienced out of doors. Take the word of someone who's biked through open fields with it blasting out of my headphones. <3

So I was distilling the central points of my music taste in preparation for the new poptimists orgafun a couple of weeks back (always good to get a head start on the hard bits, innit!), and really, this is the truthiest truth that ever truthed:

the fastest way to my heart is to sound sort of like icy, starlit plains or rainy city streets after dark
(aka The 06:21:03:11 UP EVIL Principle, pretty much, ahaha)

This track hits it HEAD ON. Epic, swooning, melancholy, chilly, I mean, seriously, did they deliberately make it just for me?

And appropriately: Front 242: Religion (Trance U Down Remix by The Prodigy) (1995)
Which, okay, really doesn't fit the Preliminary Year-End Shortlist Fodder theme, because, well, it isn't so much, but: it's practically Religion mashed up with Break & Enter. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE?

Busta Rhymes: Call the Ambulance (2003)
So somewhere among the 50+ times I obsessively looped the blend of T.I. Hurt off Southern Style Djs' We Are da Streets mixtape in January (seriously, the first two tracks: ABS GOLD, even if the rest of the mixtape is pretty meh compared to their usual pure awesome), I had the revelation that Busta Rhymes = FCKING SEXY (in the way where it's alllll about that smooth, effortless flow and that voice, DWAH), and consequently I've slowly been making a start at acquiring his entire ouvre. This is the immediate standout off his '03 effort, doom-heavy and blary and rough, and dude, you gotta love the hook: call the ambulance, come and pick up your people/put their body on a stretcher, carry they ass out!

The-Dream: Take You Home 2 My Mama (2009)
Love vs. Money as a whole is effing amazing, but omg, omg, this one: it's so bright and intoxicated and rich and lush and just, just, CRAMMED with little moments of utter pop genious, and I'm just saying: if this isn't in my top ten (hell, top FIVE) at the end of the year, it...will have been one HELL of a year in music, in short, heh.

Also, the movement on the album that starts with this and ends with Right Side of My Brain is bound to come out as one of the greatest moments in pop this year.

This may possibly be the HOTTEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. I think I might need a new phone. :D,,,,,,,,,,,

*posts just to have posted at least once this month* XD;

(clearly I have an odd definition of 'being back', hah)

If, uh, only because I am a total LOSER and, when it became clear that no, it was in fact not the power source, and quite extremely possibly not Suspect No. 2 aka my octogenarian system drive either but some kind of bizarre motherboard issue that I can't just easily fix at home, I went "*_* EXCUSE FOR DREAM UPGRADE/CUSTOMIZATION OMG", and consequently went out and bought another laptop so it wouldn't be another two months before I had a computer I'd be able to Do Shit on again, ahahahaha.

(I got the mini's more robust big sibling, because, well, when you're enamoured, you're enamoured. :D)

---

In other, uh, wellnotexactlynews, I in a moment of boredom the other week amused myself by filling out a random writing survey I've had lying around since, like, 2002. With modifications for the fact that it was originally intended for writers of the fanficcish persuasion, and all that:

( cut for q&a )