This is what I came up with. A snapshot in time. Jon, it’s all yours when I see you next week.

1. Groucho Marx – Civil Defense Spot: Excellent Chances
2. The Caretaker – All You Are Going To Want To Do Is Get Back There
3. Andy Stott – New Ground
4. Grouper – Alien Observer
5. Peaking Lights – All The Sun That Shines
6. Ken Nordine – Brown
7. Pye Corner Audio – Electronic Rhythm Number Eighteen
8. worriedaboutsatan – Evil Dogs
9. Clams Casino – Realist Alive
10. Dr. Alimantado – Born For A Purpose
11. Andrew Weathers Ensemble – Ecstatic, Unchanging
12. Arthur Russell – That’s Us / Wild Combination
13. Boris Karloff – Civil Defense Spot: Protect Your Home

It was really hard to pick an overwhelming favorite this year. But, if pressed, I’d have to go with The Caretaker followed by a surprising close second: Rrose X Bob Ostertag.

My Top 20 of 2011 (in alphabetical order):

• Andy Stott – Passed Me By / We Stay Together – Not much else sounded like Andy Stott’s EPs this year. Techno that’s drugged and zombified; absolutely crushing.
• Applehead – Crepaxian Interligne Mixtape – I slept on the beautiful limited clamshell cassette, but it was then released as a free download shortly thereafter. Most of the source material isn’t from this year, yet I’m including it on the list. 80s Spanish and Italian horror classics. Best mix of 2011.
• Bvdub – I Remember (Translations Of Mørketid) - Brock Van Wey continued to be a busy, busy man this year cranking out a ton of new releases. This one floated to the top. Among his very best in his dub techno, ambient canon.
• The Caretaker – An Empty Bliss Beyond This World – James Kirby, another busy fellow, returned with an astounding album under his Caretaker moniker. This didn’t leave my turntable very often this year. Haunted 78s melted on blue wax. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.
• Container – LP – A standout among an already stellar label, Spectrum Spools. I really liked the reviews calling it “squashed” techno. Lots of artists are creating music along these lines right now. But this one is unquestionably unparalleled.
• Deadbeat – Drawn and Quartered – Deadbeat returned with a killer dub LP this year. One of those releases that I knew would make my year end list from the second I heard it. He continues to amaze with his deep sound productions. Cavernous.
• Ekoplekz – Memowrekz – This album’s a trip. Analogue equipment with a mind of its own. Unpredictable noise experiments that sputter, flicker and drone for over 110 minutes. Might be my third favorite of the year if I had to rank ‘em.
• Elzhi – Elmatic – I heard a lot of great new hip-hop this year. But I have to give a special nod to Elzhi’s powerful tribute to Illmatic by Nas because it was my soundtrack to our move to Detroit.
• The Field – Looping State Of Mind – On his 3rd release, Axel Willner perfects his delirious loops of beats and arpeggiated samples. You really need all three of his albums to space out to. Perfect ambient techno.
• Grouper – A I A : Alien Observer / A I A : Dream Loss - The title track off of Alien Observer might sit atop my favorite songs of the year. Liz Harris returns with two simultaneously released LPs. In a Wire article, she explains the relationship of the two as “not a double album per se, but two separate objects that were meant to go together. I was trying to talk about the third space that wasn’t there – the space between them.”
• Iceage – New Brigade – It seems this is my only rock record on the list. The post-punk genre can be tiring with few recent albums worthy to be put alongside some of the greats. This is an exception. 24 minutes of extraordinary punk from a group of Danish teenagers. ROCK!
• Jürgen Müller – Science of the Sea – The backstory explains that this long-lost labor of love was originally released in 1982. I’m going out on a limb to say that its mysterious sounds documenting the magic of oceangraphy are a bit too spot-on among the similar resurgence in synthesizer music lately to be from the early 80s. But I don’t care, this LP is a thing of aquatic beauty.
• Motion Sickness Of Time Travel – Seeping Through The Veil Of The Unconscious - If you dig the music of Grouper and liked the A I A albums I mentioned above, you will love the music of Rachel Evans. I know this originally came out in 2010, but the vinyl was released this year and I loved it so much I had to include it. Gauzy washes of synth and other ephemera. Easily in the top 5 among this list.
• Peaking Lights – 936 - I think this was on everyone’s list this year. So I won’t say much about it, other than it’s a remarkably solid effort from start to finish. Was “All The Sun That Shines” the anthem of 2011?
• Pinch & Shackleton – Pinch & Shackleton – A late entry into this year’s list. Two leaders in the dubstep community, although you can easily argue how often these two guys break the rules of the genre. More than a simple collaboration, these gents take their sounds to the next level. Strikingly good. A new bar has been set.
• Ricardo Donoso – Progress Chance – Someone reviewed this as Goa trance without the beats. Along with The Caretaker LP, this album was also on heavy rotation in our home. Any fan of electronic music needs this in their collection. A special, special record.
• Roly Porter – Aftertime – Another one I slept on until near the end of the year. It took me a bit to warm up to it but now I love its rich and moody textures. Repeated listens uncover layers of innovative sound. Stark, compelling and it might be the most rewarding album on this year’s list.
• Rrose X Bob Ostertag – Motormouth Variations – This release blew me away. One of my favorite things to have come out on the Sandwell District label. Ostertag, an improv musician who has collaborated with John Zorn and Fred Frith, provides the modular synth sounds while the mysterious Rrose sits in the producer’s seat. The bass on this thing is incredible. Absolutely monstrous.
• Surgeon – Breaking The Frame – Best techno record of the year? After a brief high pitched intro, this album never lets up. Brilliantly produced. Deep and dark, this LP is an inspiring take on techno by Mr. Anthony Child.
• talkingmakesnosense – Corscates – The genre of drone can be classified in many ways. I don’t know if Dominic Dixon minds the label “drone” but this is my favorite drone release of the year. It’s beautifully packaged too in a wax sealed translucent envelope with handmade paper print inserts. Limited to 100, you need to grab this before it’s gone.

Hope you dig this list. I enjoyed many, many releases this year, but I found these to be the best of the best. The ones I kept returning to. No doubt they’ll continue to be favorites of mine for years to come. Happy Holidays!

EDIT: Clearly I was hasty in posting my list this year. There are quite a few stellar releases I missed. So, better late than never, here are another ten:

• Nicholas Szczepanik - Please Stop Loving Me
• Devin Underwood & Marcus Fischer – Correspond
• Clams Casino – Instrumentals
• Moon Wiring Club – Clutch It Like A Gonk
• The Advisory Circle – As The Crow Flies
• Rene Hell – The Terminal Symphony
• Ezekiel Honig – Folding In On Itself
• Perc – Wicker & Steel
• Emuul – The Drawing Of The Line
• Aquarelle – Sung In Broken Symmetry

OK. Now I’m done. Cheers!

Most online searches came up dry for physical storefronts. There are a handful in Delhi, a few in Mumbai, but virtually none in Bangalore. But my friend Chris unearthed an address buried in a newsgroup and I knew I had to find it:

Balaji.D.G./Govardhan.D.G.
#64, 1st Floor,
Balaji Silk Complex, Avenue Road, Bangalore
Phone: 09342410288

A hotel car drove us in a direction of the city I’ve never explored. A few minutes into the drive, the driver asked if I had any local Indian friends. Yes, friends and colleagues, but no one with us at the moment. The driver continued: “This address is on a road I cannot drive.” Apparently the neighborhood can only be reached by foot; the area thickly settled with shops. We found Avenue Road and it was indeed bananatown. Narrow winding streets that splintered into even narrower alleys. Shops and shopkeepers lined the streets, but no street signs or landmarks to help us.

Luckily I had jotted down the record shop phone number and our driver made the call. We ended up parking on the outskirts and the shop owner came to meet us. A ten minute walk through alleys and tunnels and up several flights of stairs, we arrived in a dark antique store.

The walls and floor were crammed with old wooden furniture, musical instruments and several cabinets filled with metal toys and knick-knacks from decades ago. In the middle of the floor, piled several feet high, were stacks of old dusty records – a terrible way to store your vinyl, by the way. I immediately started flipping through the stacks, choking on dust clouds as I sorted through film soundtracks and traditional devotional records in several Indian languages: Hindi, Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil.

I set some aside based on two crude methods: above average vinyl and sleeve condition, and quality of the cover art. I’m a music fanatic but I was definitely out of my league and had no clue what any of this sounded like. But one of the first finds ended up being my favorite of the day: Jaani Dushman, the soundtrack for an Indian horror film from 1979. You can watch clips of it on YouTube. How could I pass up a cover so genius! Perhaps Finders Keepers needs to repress and re-release it?

After a few minutes of digging, the shop owner asked if I’d like to see more. “I have thousands more upstairs.” His assistant took me another flight up and unlocked a heavy-padlocked steel door. The room was darker than the main shop. A small walkway parted a roomful of more antique furniture leading to the far back of the attic. At the end of the room were shelves and shelves of old records.

See more photos of the record shelves on Flickr

After a couple minutes it was clear there was no organizational pattern going on here. It was also quite clear there would be no way I could look at every record. I learned later that the shop frequently sees record collectors and DJs primarily from Japan and Russia. Visitors come equipped with their own portable turntable and headphones and make a day of it. The shop owner would supply them with breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was no working turntable at the store, which was a shame, so I proceeded on instinct alone. It was daunting but I started flipping through stack after stack pulling out some nice looking gems.

See all of the LP covers on Flickr

I had to be careful. Some of the sleeves were quite fragile. Also I had to beware of the vinyl itself. The collection was in such disarray that many sleeves had the wrong album inside or were missing a record altogether — such was the case with this Kraftwerk LP. The owner let me take the cover for free though.

An hour disappeared in an instant. Before I knew it I was carrying an armful of dust-covered records back down to the main shop. The owner as well as our driver helped me to weed out the good from the bad knowing I have a penchant for whimsical album covers and upbeat Indian dance film scores. I whittled my pile of 50 or so records down to a barely manageable 30. I knew I’d have a lot of work ahead of me cleaning sleeves and vinyl, but I went with it. We negotiated a price for the whole lot, including some old comics from the 1970s found in yet another backroom.

See all of the comic books on Flickr

All in all it was an experience I’ll never forget. For record shopping, it was right up there with my visit to Hard Wax in Berlin. I have some serious record cleaning to do when I return home. I need to buy some fresh sleeves too. I’m hoping to find a few hidden gems among the lot. I’ll do some previewing to pick out highlights, but then expect an Indian listening party soon. You’re all invited.

See all of the LP covers on Flickr

Last year I thought I had heard a lot of new music when I listed 62 releases. But this year, I heard a few hundred and narrowed it down to my favorite 222. Bananas, I know. So I decided to corral my favorite 12, crown a particular album as the king and let most others sift below. All in alphabetical order.

So here’s the album (actually, the trio of albums) that I returned to more often than any other. Four hours of gorgeous ambient music without a misstep. You can find these releases and more on the lovely BFW Recordings netlabel.

My 2010 Tippity-Top-Top Favorite:

• Bing Satellites – Twilight Sessions Vol 1
• Bing Satellites – Twilight Sessions Vol 2
• Bing Satellites – Twilight Sessions Vol 3

2010 Must-Haves (Top 12):

• Access To Arasaka – void();
• Actress – Splazsh
• Carl Sagan’s Ghost – Especially For Them
• Demdike Stare – Voices of Dust
• Frequent Sync – Coalesce
• Ghost Box Study Series 01-04 (7″s)
• Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – Love Is A Stream
• Loscil – Endless Falls
• Nest – Retold
• Scuba – Triangulation
• The Fun Years – God Was Like, No
• Yellow Swans – Going Places

2010 Well Worth Searching Out (if you feel like diggin’ in):

• Acanthus – Le Frisson Des Vampires
• Access To Arasaka – ==null
• Al Tourettes – Dodgem / Sunken
• Al Tourettes & Appleblim – Lipsmacker
• Alan Howarth – RA.230 Podcast
• Aless – I’mmobile
• Alex B – Moments
• Altar Eagle – Mechanical Gardens
• Altus – Black Trees Among Amber Skies
• Analog Workshop – Emporium of Broken Toys
• ANBB (Alva.Noto & Blixa Bargeld) - Mimikry
• ANBB (Alva.Noto & Blixa Bargeld) – Ret Marut Handshake
• Anworth Kirk – Anworth Kirk
• Architect – Consume Adapt Create
• Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
• ASC – Nothing Is Certain
• Asura – 360
• Asura – Asura
• Asura & Anenon – Silver Trees – Damiel
• Autechre – Move of Ten
• Autechre – Oversteps
• Autre Ne Veut – Autre Ne Veut
• Balam Acab – See Birds EP
• Barn Owl – Ancestral Star
• Benjamin Dauer – Burning Of Wine
• Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot… The Son Of Chico Dusty
• BJ Nilsen – The Invisible City
• Brian Eno – Small Craft On A Milk Sea
• Bvdub – A Silent Reign
• Bvdub / Shifty Science – Same Boat, Different Sea / Love’s Not Fading
• Carbon Based Lifeforms – Interloper
• Carl Sagan’s Ghost – Before I Go
• Carl Sagan’s Ghost – Colonial Spa EP
• Carl Sagan’s Ghost – Music For Home Offices Volume Two
• Charanjit Singh – Synthesizing: Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat
• Chihei Hatakeyama – A Long Journey
• Christopher Rau – Asper Clouds
• Clem Leek – Holly Lane
• Clubroot – II: MMX
• Commix – ReCall To Mind
• Daft Punk – Tron Legacy Soundtrack
• Dakota Suite – The Night Just Keeps Coming In
• Daphne Oram – Oramics
• Darkhalo – Phase Shift
• Darkstar – North
• Date Palms – Of Psalms
• DeepChord Presents Echospace – Liumin
• DeepChord Presents Echospace – Vibrational Studies (In Echospace) – Symbolism In Transition
• Dem Hunger – Caveman Smack
• Demdike Stare – Forest Of Evil
• Demdike Stare – Liberation Through Hearing
• Demdike Stare – Osmosis
• Deru – Say Goodbye To Useless
• Digital Mystikz – Return II Space
• Doyeq – Eyelashes Of Lanterns
• Drexon Field – Barnstead
• Dylan Ettinger – New Age Outlaws
• Eguana – Mantra
• Eleh – Location Momentum
• Eleven Tigers – Clouds Are Mountains
• Ellipse/Saffron Slumber – Translucence
• Eluvium – Static Nocturne
• Emeralds - Does It Look Like I’m Here?
• Excepter – Presidence
• F – Energy Distortion
• Federico Durand – La Siesta del Ciprés
• Fenn O’Berg – In Stereo
• Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
• Former Ghosts – Fleurs
• Frank Bretschneider – EXP
• Free The Robots – Ctrl Alt Delete
• Geoff Mullen – Bongo Closet
• Gonjasufi – A Sufi & A Killer
• Gradient – City Sound Vibrations
• Guideo – Anidea
• Gutta Percha – Tube Overtures
• Heavy Winged – Sunspotted
• Henrik José – The Little Things EP
• High Skies – Sounds of Earth EP
• Higuma – Den Of The Spirits
• Ian Hawgood – Slow Films In Low Light
• Ikonika – Contact, Want, Love, Have
• Imaginary Softwoods – Imaginary Softwoods
• Inch-time – Aurora
• Indignant Senility – Plays Wagner – Part One
• ISAN – Glow In The Dark Safari Set
• Ital Tek – Midnight Colour
• James Stephen Finn – Homecoming
• Jan Jelinek & Masayoshi Fujita – Bird, Lake, Objects
• Jana Winderen – Energy Field
• John Roberts – Glass Eights
• Joker – Tron
• Keith Fullerton Whitman – Disingenuity
• Kid 606 – Songs About F***ing Steve Albini
• Koen Holtkamp – Gravity/Bees
• Kontext – Disassociate
• LA Vampires and Zola Jesus – LA Vampires & Zola Jesus EP
• Language of Landscape – Memories Fade Under A Shallow Autumn Snow
• Late – Phantom Papers EP
• Lil B – Rain In England
• Litmus0001 – Fear In A Gaze Towards An Unknown Horizon
• Loscil – Versions
• Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones
• Lukid – Chord
• Magical Unicellular Music – Aurora
• Marcel Dettmann – Dettmann
• Marcus Fischer – Arctic/Antarctic
• Marcus Fischer – Monocoastal
• Mark Fell – Multistability
• Mark Van Hoen – Where Is The Truth
• Mater Suspiria Vision – Second Coming
• Matrix Metals – Flamingo Breeze
• Matthew Dear – Black City
• Max Richter – Infra
• Mike Shiflet – Llanos
• Modul – Quarterlife Recycle Bin
• Mon0 – Sensaural
• Moon Wiring Club – A Spare Tabby At The Cat’s Wedding
• Moritz Von Oswald Trio – Live In New York
• Moshimoss – Hidden Tapes No. 66
• Motionfield – The Sound Of Snow
• Mount Kimbie – Crooks & Lovers
• Mount Kimbie – Remixes Part 1 & 2
• Mr. Cloudy – Light In My Head
• Nadja – Autopergamene
• NCThompson – Another Quiet Winter
• Neil Young – Le Noise
• Nettless – From Beyond
• Nettless – Phobos and Deimos
• Nos Phillipé – Nos Phillipé
• Ólafur Arnalds – …And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness
• Olan Mill – Pine
• On – Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not
• Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal
• oOoOO – oOoOO EP
• Optimo – Fabric 52
• Oval – O
• Oval – Oh
• Pale Blue Sky – Shades Of Grey
• Pan Sonic – Gravitoni
• Pan Sonic & Keiji Haino – In The Studio
• Pangaea – Pangaea EP
• Pantha du Prince – Black Noise
• Phillip Wilkerson – Daybook EP
• Phillip Wilkerson – The Way Home
• Pjusk – Sval
• Polygon Ring – Songs From The Season Labs
• Proem – Enough Conflict
• Rafael Anton Irisarri – Reverie
• Rafael Anton Irisarri – The North Bend
• Rangers – Suburban Tours
• Relmic Statute – Morning Tapes
• Rene Hell – Porcelain Opera
• Richard Chartier – A Field For Mixing
• Richard Skelton – Landings
• Rockwell – Reverse Engineering
• Roof Light – Kirkwood Gap
• Roswell Return – Probe
• Roughquest – Play
• RxRy – RxRy
• Sam Prekop – Old Punch Card
• Scott Cortez – Twin Radiant Flux
• Scott Tuma – Dandelion
• Scuba – Sub:Stance
• Seefeel – Faults
• Senking – Pong
• Sepalcure – Love Pressure EP
• Shackleton – Fabric 55
• Shed – The Traveller
• Shlohmo – Shlomoshun Deluxe
• Simon Scott – Traba
• Sog – Abweichung
• Specta Ciera – Accumulation Section
• Specta Ciera – Snowflake Collections 2
• Sun Araw – Off Duty
• Surgeon – Fabric 53
• T++ – Wireless
• Take – Only Mountain
• Taylor Deupree – Shoals
• Teebs – Ardour
• The Alps – Le Voyage
• The Black Dog - Music For Real Airports
• The Inventors of Aircraft – Unknown Language
• The Present Moment – The High Road
• The Sight Below – It All Falls Aparts
• The Soft Moon – The Soft Moon
• Thomas Fehlmann – Gute Luft
• To Rococo Rot – Speculation
• Toro Y Moi – Causers of This
• Umberto - Prophecy of the Black Widow
• Various – Asthesia
• Various - Long Division with Remainders box set
• Various – Myth Of The Near Future Split EP
• Various – Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa
• Velour – The Velvet Collection
• Verülf – Territorial
• VHS Head – Trademark Ribbons Of Gold
• Virgo – Virgo
• Walls – Walls
• Wicked Messenger – Officium Nocturnum
• Winter Drones – Blood In The Coffin
• Wisp – We Miss You
• Woob – Repurpose
• Xasthur – Portal Of Sorrow
• Zola Jesus – Stridulum
• Zombie Zombie – Plays John Carpenter
• Zs – New Slaves
• Zvuku – Half Full

I can’t dance for beans. So I’ve always gravitated to the more cerebral sounds that this genre has to offer. Like my Apnea Monofin Mix from a year ago, I was inspired to throw together some tracks that I either heard her play or believe would fit nicely in her old 2:00-4:00am show.

This is unmixed but I feel it flows reasonably well from track to track. Enjoy.

Bronze Monolith Mix (1 hr 43 min; 186MB)

Clubroot “Waterways”
2562 “Like A Dream”
Sepalcure “Every Day Of My Life”
Alley Cat “Sweet Spot”
Kode 9 “2 Far Gone”
Digital Mystikz “Eyez”
Distance “Night Vision”
Ikonika “Yoshimitsu”
iTAL tEK “Satellite”
Demdike Stare “Bardo Thodol”
Late “Losing You”
Pendle Coven “Uncivil Engineering (Calm Mix)”
Roughquest “Lazy Sunday”
Mount Kimbie “Maybes (James Blake Remix)”
Vex’d “Corridor”
Boxcutter “Gave Dub”
Shackleton “Trembling Leaf”
Scuba “Three Sided Shape”
Burial “Fostercare”
Balam Acab “Big Boy”

stART on the street descends upon Park Ave, Worcester

My favorite part of the festival is always the funky artisans. Prints, t-shirts, bags, postcards, pins and lots of other unique goods. Here’s one of the best from this year.

Q: What do bike punks crave when they turn into zombies? A: CHAAAAAAAINS.

And there were lots of demonstrations, including woodworking and blacksmithing.

Blacksmiths at stART on the street

I was happy to walk away with a bunch of treasures. Can’t wait ’til next year. Who’s with me?

Treasures from stART on the street

Treasures from stART on the street

Treasures from stART on the street

About a year and a half ago, I posted about my musical obsession with the dub techno genre. As I mentioned in that post, it took several months for me to hunt down lots of rarities in digital format. Most of the music that started this genre originated in the city of Berlin. In particular, there are two musicians that brought together the dubby rhythms of reggae with the mechanical beats and glitchy sonics of minimal techno. To help propel their love of music, they opened a record shop called Hard Wax in the Kreuzberg district of southeast Berlin in 1989. Here is where the labels Basic Channel, Chain Reaction, and Rhythm & Sound among others were born.

Hard Wax in Berlin

I visited Hard Wax yesterday and discovered that it’s the mecca of all of this music I’ve been trying to track down for the last couple years. Lining the wall near the cash register is the chronological releases of Basic Channel vinyl beginning with BC-01. The fanboy in me had to take a photo. The staff there are very friendly and helpful, and I loved that the turntable listening stations allowed you to preview any record in the shop.

I walked away with an armful of records, 12 in total. Most of them I already have in digital format. However the vinyl editions I picked up are either special, colored vinyl or just a neat pressing of a classic album. Luckily my visit to Berlin ends next week otherwise I’d find myself there again buying more records I don’t need.

• Paperclip People – Basic Reshape
• Basic Channel – Radiance
• Arne Weinberg Pres. Onmutu Mechanicks – Blossom / Hypophysica
• Sebastien San – Thunder/Storm EP
• Arne Weinberg Pres. Onmutu Mechanicks – Black Throated Diver
• Mikkel Metal – Kenton EP
• Sleeparchive – LBB Works
• Efdemin – Efdemin
• Keith Hudson – Flesh Of My Skin Blood Of My Blood
• Cedric Im Brooks & The Light Of Saba – Cedric Im Brooks & The Light Of Saba
• Dr. Alimantado – Born For A Purpose – Sons Of Thunder
• White Mice – White Mice

I’ve divided my favorites into two groups, both alphabetically listed. I chose 62 releases in total. Most are full-length albums and some are EPs and singles. However there are no compilations, mixes or reissues.  The first group is my must-haves; the second group is well worth searching out. And we’ll leave it at that. Happy 2010!

2009 Must-Haves (12):

2009 Well Worth Searching Out (50):

• 2562 – Unbalance
• Alley Cat & Vaccine – Sweet Spot & Radiate
• Alva Noto – Xerrox Vol.2
• Anduin – Abandoned In Sleep
• Animal Hospital – Memory
• Arne Weinberg – Alpha & Omega
• Black To Comm – Alphabet 1968
• Broadcast and The Focus Group – Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age
• Bvdub – We Were the Sun
• Caboladies – Crowded Out Memory
• Carl Sagan’s Ghost – Darkness And The Light
• Clubroot – Clubroot
• Concern – Truth And Distance
• Demdike Stare – Symbiosis
• Dinosaur Jr – Farm
• Emeralds – Emeralds
• Emptyset – Emptyset
• Ethernet – 144 Pulsations of Light
• Hildur Guðnadóttir – Without Sinking
• Kreng – L’Autopsie Phénoménale De Dieu
• Lawrence – Until Then, Goodbye
• Loscil – Strathcona Variations
• Luke Hess – Light In The Dark
• Martin Finke – Make Daylight
• Martyn – Great Lengths
• Monolake – Silence
• Moon Wiring Club – Striped Paint For The Last Post
• Mordant Music – SyMptoMs
• Mountains – Choral
• Mungolian Jetset – We Gave It All Away…And Now We Are Taking It Back
• Peverelist – Jarvik Mindstate
• Pixel – The Drive
• Quantec – Cauldron Subsidence
• Redshape – The Dance Paradox
• Roj – The Transactional Dharma of Roj
• Scott Tuma And Mike Weis – Taradiddle
• Shackleton – Three EPs
• SnD – Atavism
• Stephan Mathieu + Taylor Deupree – Transcriptions
• STL – Dub Techno Explorations
• Stray Ghost – Each Paradise Is A Lost Paradise
• The Sight Below – Murmur EP
• Thomas Köner – La Barca
• Tu M’ – Monochromes Vol. 1
• Vladislav Delay – Tummaa
• William Basinski – 92982
• Yagya – Rigning
• Zelienople – Give It Up
• Zola Jesus – The Spoils
• Zomby – One Foot Ahead Of The Other

Chili Sin Carne

Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients. This hearty, vegetarian chili can be made in under an hour. We made it last weekend for the first time and it was delicious. This recipe serves 10 and would be perfect for a football (or cricket?) party.

• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced (1 ½ cups)
• 2 carrots, diced (1 cup)
• 1 small bell pepper, diced (1 cup)
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (4 tsp.)
• 1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes with juice
• 1 15.5-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 15.5-oz. can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 12-oz. pkg. veggie crumbles (or if you couldn’t find them, like us, use veggie sausage)
• 2 Tbs. chili powder
• 1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 Tbs. light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1 10-oz. pkg. frozen corn

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sauté 2 minutes. Add carrots and bell pepper, and cook 2 minutes more. Add garlic, and cook 1 minute, or until fragrant. Stir in 2 cups water and all remaining ingredients except corn, and season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Fold in corn and ½ cup water, and simmer 10 minutes more.

Serve with shredded cheese on top and crusty bread on the side. Perfect for a fall day!

We arrived to a small harbor that sits very far east of San Juan just around sunset. It was just light enough to get our bearings from land before we hopped into a two-person ocean kayak. We were among 20 kayaks on the tour and each kayak was outfitted with a green glowing ring in the front and a red glowing ring in the back. Think glowsticks in the shape of a circle from a 1992 rave.

We paddled single-file and zig-zagged through the moored boats in the harbor until we reached a small opening in a forest of mangrove trees. We later learned that these were red mangroves and dinoflagellates survived by eating its tannins that colored the water red from its immersed branches. Once we were in the maze of mangroves, we were glad that every kayak had the green and red lights. There was no other source of light. Even the night sky was obscured by the mangroves that were snarled above our heads.

The trip into the bay was against the current and it took us a solid 25 minutes to reach the open lagoon. As we approached, I noticed that the water turned a radiant light blue every time my paddle dipped into the ocean. With no other lights around, it was an eerie yet calming effect. The intensity of the light increased as we entered the open bay. We huddled in a pack of kayaks in the middle of the bay for a few minutes as our tour guide explained the bioluminescene effect to us. He said that the reason for the effect could be a defense mechanism as the light grows brighter when the organisms are disturbed, although there was no empirical evidence to prove this theory.

Our guide then invited us to dip our arms in the water as deep as we could. I looked down and it looked like a million sparkles floating through the water. As soon as I touched the surface, the water surrounding my hand and arm lit up a gorgeous bluish white. Swishing my arm faster and faster underwater only intensified the chemical reaction. I was transfixed as I used my paddle to create even more disturbance in the water. I never could see any of the dinoflagellates themselves — only the trace of light they emitted.

My favorite moment was scooping up water in my cupped hand. By this time in the tour, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could make out even the smallest specks of light. My hand was full of sparkling movement which eventually stuck to my palm as the water seeped through my fingers. It was like unlocking some kind of alchemical mystery.