I can think of about a fifty new songs worth playing for you all, and maybe ten or so in need of a deeper discussion, but none is more worthy than this unconventional beauty from John Callaghan. I have followed John since his debut on Warp in 1998, and that incredible little 7" entitled I’m Not Comfortable In My Mind remains one of my most cherished possessions, not only for it’s rarity, but for it’s intensity and ingenuity and individuality. Truly, no one else in the world can make music quite like John.

For as much as I love and still relentlessly collect Warp’s releases, there are few songs on the new Recreated double CD that rise above the novelty of it all. Certainly the Born Ruffians’ cover of Aphex Twin’s “Milkman / To Cure a Weakling Child” ranks near the top, but after that I find the rest to be wholly disappointing. Fortunately, John takes on my least favorite song off of Autechre’s flawless Cichli Suite EP and turns it into one for the ages. Here’s the original for reference:

“Tilapia” pales in comparison only because the other four songs define the pinnacle of Autechre’s classic 90s sound. Yes, it’s a fine song, but it feels a bit out of place in the context of the others. Quibbles aside, John’s remix is more of an homage, finding inspiration in the click track, square-wave baseline, and that same sense of the song withdrawing into itself. It’s masterful:

The instrumental track alone shines brightly enough, but it’s even better with the vocals, which in turn are made even more meaningful by that strange and unfamiliar word in the title. If I understand it correctly, a phylactery is an object used to contain a soul. What else is music if not the same?

So I’ll keep on talking
for as long as I can
warm you with my embers
hoping you’ll remember
as I leave my debris
like temporal graffiti
audition for your memory
oh please don’t forget me

And these souvenirs
are fragile and small
so mark where they fall
I need them to prove that I was here at all

Like a stone makes ripples
like a stone I’m sinking
create a puppet of me
to occupy your thinking
I leave a thousand footprints
and a million echoes
a million flawed impressions
in the people I know

And these souvenirs
reflections of John
I will be gone
I need you to carry them so I live on

And these souvenirs
momentos I make
forming my way
you were my phylactery so keep me safe

As I continue to uncover what it means to be me, and unravel what it is I am put here on earth to do, I find comfort and encouragement in those who also hunger for meaning and a deeper connection to all that is. There’s a certain futility in living to be remembered, but as best I can tell there’s nothing wrong with creating something of lasting value. I should be so fortunate that my work touches another soul, that someone else chooses to carry it forward, that what I have accomplished with my life lives on in some small way.

Words fail to express the love I have for this stretch of the California coast. So many of my happiest moments have their roots here, and I know of no other place that so thoroughly calms my restless soul.

I proposed to Abby in China Cove, a secluded beach in the Point Lobos State Reserve made just for us, but totally unknown to me before we arrived:

And shared the first of many Carmel sunsets that night:

And celebrated her birthday the next day at Nepenthe, perched high above the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur:

And were married in the Carmel Highlands, with our families in attendance, on a day when the fog to burned off just in time to give us our moment in the sun:

And I love the drive from Carmel to Big Sur. If I stopped every time I saw an astonishingly beautiful scene like the one below, the 35 mile drive would take a lifetime:

So you can imagine my delight to find out about the show in Big Sur, and my sheer joy at getting four of the most precious tickets on earth, in my humble opinion of course. Abby, Sawyer, my brother Kevin, and I arrived to find the Library tucked in between towering trees and completely enveloped in the densest fog. The entire scene was magical, and only made more so by the song that plays in the background of this quick video:

I only wish I would have moved the camera more slowly, in spite of the speed it reminds of how time stood still that night. The entire hour plus before Animal Collective played was filled for much of the same ethereal sounds, none of which I recognized, but this one stood above all else.

I spent the better part of tonight with that video looped, trying in vain to decipher the lyrics with the hope of identifying the song, when at last I remembered seeing an app for my iPhone called Shazam. Sure enough, a ten second sample identified it, and after scouring the internet again I finally had my song (it seems to be a live version from SxSW, the album is all but impossible to find). Here it is:

The show itself was almost an afterthought given the majesty of the setting, the crisp and cool air ever so slightly misty from the fog, the history of the land on which we stood, and the band that brought each one of us there. But my most cherished memory is the few hours I was able to share with my family in such a magnificent place, and now I have a song to take me there in an instant.

Dunno why, but I’m thinking about getting older. It’s not a midlife crisis, maybe it’s because my grandpa seems to be one of the last survivors in his family. He buried a good friend of his last week and is not getting any younger himself. He told me about his youth and his years in the US. He doesn’t have any pictures of those years (the twenties) whereas I take pictures of my breakfast. The times they are a-changing.

The line “He doesn’t have any pictures of those years whereas I take pictures of my breakfast.” stopped me in my tracks. Not only does my generation take those same silly pictures and videos too, we do so to share them with the world. I look at the variety and sheer volume of memories Abby and I have already archived for Sawyer and only wish I had the same for me.

Fortunately on my last trip home I had a chance to rekindle some wonderful memories of my youth, and what I lack in volume is more than made up in the singularity of these images. Take this one of me in 1985, just 12 years old, holding David Lee Roth’s Just a Gigilo / I Ain’t Got Nobody in one hand and Run DMC’s King of Rock in the other. I’m pretty sure that was illegal in most states at the time:

I have no idea how I convinced my parents to buy me those albums, for Easter no less, but I guess the precedent was set nearly two years prior when they bought me my first walkman and Def Leopard’s Pyromania for my tenth birthday. Take note of the following: a walkman as big as my head, air-traffic controller headphones, my crossing guard sash with a badge over my heart, and a belt buckle embossed with my name. I am too cool for school:

Lest you think this was some sort of aberration, my friend and I lip-synched a Def Leopard song for music class in fourth grade around the same time. (I just remembered how we made guitars and speakers out of cardboard, painted them with Tempera paints, and connected them with string.) I’m not sure how that was acceptable, but when the guy on the left is dressed as a box of camels I guess anything goes. Ah, public schools:

And yes, that is a bandana around my left leg just above my knee.

The point of sharing this is more for me than you. It’s an affirmation of the role of music in my life, the way it then expanded my horizons and marked my milestones, and the fact that it still does in every way today.

This past month has been a blur, but as I exit April and enter the month of May I do so with a newfound strength and unexpected support from these pictures. Music is most definitely my calling, and the clarity I have around what comes next would be alarming if it weren’t so well-aligned with everything in my past.

So yes, the times they are a-changing, but who I am at the core remains the same. My love for music makes me want to give something meaningful and lasting back, and my passion for the internet and its ability to connect and coalesce gives me the way to do it. I truly have lived my life for this opportunity, and I can’t wait to devote my life to making it happen.

I could write volumes on my love for Ultramarine, dissecting each and every song, marveling at their ability to both embrace and transcend the sounds of their day, and raving about their uncanny thematic coherence across albums (artwork and all). It is safe to say that their music called into question everything I once listened to and demanded that anything new be of a similarly lasting and outstanding quality.

As for “Citizen,” from 1995 no less, I have had this song in near constant rotation for most of the month, and now with the clock winding down on March I finally have the time and space to share it with you. I even transcribed the lyrics too:

I know that you
you are scared
of your own shadow

It’s your little voice inside you
and it makes your every move

People are always questions about you
why can’t you just tell them the truth
When your hands are tied and your hanging from a string
why don’t you swing and set yourself free

Let go of your ego
and I’ll let go of mine
for though your eyes are cloudy
i know that they should shine

Go hang from a string
why don’t you swing and set yourself free
You say that if you jump, gravity will pull you under
but gravity knows nothing over love for you

Let go of your ego
and I’ll let go of mine
for though your legs are stumbling
I know that they should climb

It might just be the most sensual and spiritual song I know, and those lyrics reverberate throughout my soul unlike any other, especially as of late. Listen:

This post most likely marks the end of an era for me and my beloved tankt. What was once my personal playground may very well become my professional pursuit. I would not be able to even contemplate this next phase without the explorations I have done here, and I am very grateful for those of you who have shared this experience with me. Thank you all.

This is brilliant and beautifully done. See This is Reality for more.

The shift that is happening right now is that the people who insist on keeping the world as it was are going to get more and more frustrated until they lose their jobs. People who want to invent a whole new set of rules, a new paradigm, can’t believe their good fortune and how lucky they are that the people in the industry aren’t noticing an opportunity…

Nature abhors a vacuum.

… arbitrage the difference between the capabilities of the new medium and readiness of the existing economic and social structures to exploit those capabilities.

Wonkish, yes, but there’s a clear resonance with me, and it only continues to intensify. I believe I have come up with something big, the only remaining question is whether I can sell it, unless of course it sells itself.

As always, more soon.

“Skyliner,” from their most recent Trans Canada Highway EP, is yet another in a long line of monumental BoC tracks, perhaps second only to their paean to Beck’s “Broken Drum.” In all sincerity, if you have haven’t heard that remix, one which Beck claims as his favorite remix of all, you must find it. Or wait patiently for me to post it next week.

I couldn’t possibly say enough about Boards of Canada, nor even begin to add anything that hasn’t already been said a million times. Their music defies easy classification, transcends any recognizable era, and pretty much exists on its own plane. While many ape elements of their style, their music remain instantly recognizable — both old and new, with a heavy dose of the now too:

I saw them play one of three lives shows in the past ten years at Warp’s We Are Ten parties in London. Not only was their set flawless, and full of songs that would not see the light of day for several more years, but their visual arrangement tops anything and everything I have seen since. I remember like it was yesterday, listening to the opening song “Zoetrope” while watching the most enchantingly grainy loop of blurry-faced children move in reverse on playground equipment — floating back up the sliding pole, jumping backwards off of the merry-go-round, and so on. One of my fondest memories for sure, easily topping that night’s live sets of Autechre and Squarepusher, and a djing Aphex Twin!

This track is but one of many gems on o9’s massive Church of the Ghetto PC album, certainly one of the very best of its 2004 era, yet still virtually unknown even to this day. I discovered and purchased it from iTunes way back when, but the sound is so incredibly immense and the textures are so full and relentlessly refined that Apple’s 128kbps AAC encoding just couldn’t handle it. Way too much distortion for my delicate ears, which caused me to keep some distance from it for far too long.

I stumbled across “Terminal Orange” again today, and was instantly pulled in and every bit as enamored as my first listen in 2004. Tonight, I repurchased the album from Amazon, getting slightly better sound quality from their VBR mp3s, and the satisfaction of supporting o9 all over again. This particular track defies classification, it sounds like everything and nothing else, so familiar yet entirely foreign. I can’t get enough of it:

This is the first time I have ever specifically saved an EQ setting in iTunes for a song / album. I finally have the sound just right, with no distortion whatsoever, and I do not want to lose it. And yes, I’m already working on the next track in the mix, and hope to have that sooner than the once a week postings as of late.

I first promised a Plaid Song of the Day way back in October of last year, then just days into my new experiment of posting one song at a time. Now some 20+ songs later, I finally have the perfect track to share — an absolute epic stomper from 2003’s Spokes.

This album came hot on the heels of the P-Brane EP, which was supposed to have marked a clean break from their more melodic days into something much more forwardly percussive. Spokes has always felt much more true to the Plaid sound I so dearly know and love. “Buns” comes near the end, an appropriate capstone if you ask me, so fast at first blush, yet effortlessly full and lush:

I have tried repeatedly to find anything as immersive and impressive on their most recent full-length, 2006’s Greedy Baby, but it all falls flat to me, even though their live set in April of 2007 — Yuri’s Night at NASA in Mountain View no less — was the best of the four I have seen. Their new album called Scintilli (derived from scintillare, meaning to sparkle or glitter; to give off sparks) is due later this year, and I can only hope it is a return to classic form.