Favorite Albums of 2008

No catchy title for this post. Nor for the last one, which I'm revising. Also, after I gave the impression that I'll be going dark while pre-pro-ing the hell out of my film, I can't resist the urge to break my vague non-blogging suggestion. That, and it entails the usual of the past month of blogging: posting twelve-track mixes and making lists.

Before I forget: I almost entirely forgot that The Office starts anew tonight. After I burned through season 4 on DVD (so lukewarm about that season that I Netflixed it and never intend to buy it), I really have no enthusiasm about the future of the show. So I'm not chomping at the bit for the premiere. I have the Tivo set to tape it, obviously, and there's Hulu and all. But I don't plan on writing thousands of words dissecting the episode. The show doesn't deserve that anymore.

It's still funny, though. A quarter of the time, at least.

And now, the impetus for this blog entry:

A revised list of my favorite albums of the year now that we're at the three-quarter mark:

1. No Age - Nouns
   
2. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
   
3. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
   
4. Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow, and Blue
   
5. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
   
6. The Walkmen - You & Me
   
7. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
   
8. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
   
9. Jay Reatard - Singles 06-07 / '08 Matador Singles
   
10. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles

This list, of course, changes week to week. Case in point, I hadn't even heard Born Ruffians until not long ago, and the TV on the Radio album just dropped a few days back.

And new music is still coming out at a regular pace. I just got my hands on the David Holmes solo album (halfway through and it's solid) and - according to my rule that if an album gets above an 8 on Pitchfork, I'm contractually obligated to get it - the Gentleman Jesse album. I don't know about the latter; I heard a track off his MySpace and it sounded all right.

But what good are lists without some music to back it up? First is a noisy-as-hell mux that's only recommended for people who don't mind a little in-the-red distortion and some jarring riffs and/or electronic sequences. So, the tracklist:

1. No Age - Teen Creeps
   
2. Sleater-Kinney - Wilderness
   
3. TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun
   
4. Son of Supercar - When Have I Been Wrong?
   
5. Les Savy Fav - Raging in the Plague Age
   
6. A Place to Bury Strangers - Don't Think Lover
   
7. Broken Social Scene - Ibi Dreams of Pavement
   
8. Jay Reatard - Turning Blue (Blood Visions version)
   
9. Crystal Castles - Alice Practice
   
10. The Knife - We Share Our Mother's Health
    
11. Justice - New Jack
    
12. Junior Boys / Fennesz - Last Exit (Fennesz Mix)

And also, for a gentler listening experience, here's a more traditional JDK mix/mux/whatever you want to call it:

1. Born Ruffians - Barnacle Goose
   
2. Bloc Party - Banquet
   
3. Pavement - All My Friends
   
4. The Magnetic Fields - Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring
   
5. Patrick Wolf - Wind in the Wires
   
6. TV on the Radio - Family Tree
   
7. No Age - Keechie
   
8. The Arcade Fire - Wake Up
   
9. The Walkmen - Long Time Ahead of Us
   
10. Professor Murder - Free Stress Test
    
11. Oxford Collapse - I Hate Nobody
    
12. Grizzly Bear - Fix It

Early Shooting / Another September Mux

My three time chunks of shooting Transmissions are fast approaching, and my daily pre-pro has kicked into medium-high gear. I'm pretty far down the film's own rabbit hole, and it's strange to think the genesis of the project only began after I finished something else in early July; only two and three-quarter months of this thus far, while all my other projects and stories have been measured by years.

A few things snuck up on me: a major shooting-schedule change; and then another; and another. Another came the other day, and my four days in early October has turned into three. This vagueness warrants a simple explanation: I'm shooting at my parents' house, and for sound and continuity and whatnot, I need to have the house under my exclusive control, e.g. they need to be somewhere else. In early October they're going to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit my grandmother, but the four-day trip was downgraded to three and, well, I don't blame them. Yes, the Upper Peninsula is quite picturesque, but said picturesqueness can only sustain interest for a maximum of about thirty-six hours.

So tomorrow, said parents are shooting a wedding all day, and it looks like I have to turn my planned day of Test Shoots #3 into a partial day of Real Shooting. Nothing major, only some inserts and close-ups of inanimate objects. But having to adapt my finely-tuned scheduled this close to the shoot really rattled me, and I had to rethink my whole strategy. I'm not exactly gunslinging this; it's still as planned and well-coordinated as any one-man film can be.

But still, tomorrow I start shooting and will probably shoot whenever I have a spare hours on hand instead of my original plan of going hardcore for a few select days. So if there was any time to justify my upcoming/relative reclusiveness, now would be that time. But I feel good about the project, and unlike the abandoned Old War and a bunch of other stuff that never got off the ground (a few shorts, a few ideas, a few scripts), I have the confidence to see this one through.

So: Shooting randomly now; shooting not-so-randomly through most of October and early November; then finishing it sometime before February. Considering I'm doing the brunt of the post-production sound work now, the picture editing shouldn't take very long.

And oh yeah here's another muxtape. The tracks before you take the potential dive:

1. Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow, and Blue
   
2. Oxford Collapse - Featherbeds
   
3. Vampire Weekend - Bryn
   
4. Pavement - Gold Soundz
   
5. Okkervil River - Because It's Kicks (special JDK edit)
   
6. Franz Ferdinand - All My Friends (LCD Soundsystem cover)
   
7. Broken Social Scene - New Country (Live at KRVX)
   
8. The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)
   
9. Joy Division - Shadowplay
   
10. A Place To Bury Strangers - Ocean (JDK edit)
    
11. Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers (JDK edit)
    
12. Everyday Shooter - So Many Ways