First album I ever owned, bought for me by my Dad when I was about five years old. I miss Michael, but I’m not saddened by his death. The MJ I knew as a child has been dead for years.

I’m sorry, the correct answer is: “The real question is ‘Just how awesome is this?'”

To which you must answer your answer with: “So awesome.”

(via 43folders)

Zoë Keating’s album One Cello x 16: Natoma is a piece of music everyone should listen to. I’m not sure I have the musical vocabulary to place it or articulate it with any skill. But if I had to put words to it, I’d describe it as intense, deep and abstract, but still accessible string work that can transform any space you’re in while listening to it. It’s the kind of thing that’s easy to turn into an “atonal nightmare of pretension” (to quote President Bartlett of The West Wing’s assessment of modern composing), but Keating never does. I am immediately drawn into it and my emotions are wrapped into its resonant rumbling, slow majestic soaring and exotic tonal modulations. The craziest thing is that, I’m pretty sure there are no instruments but layered recordings of the cello. Additionally, I understand that she creates these loops on the fly with foot-triggered hardware in such a way that no performances are ever the same.

That description alone will probably make you want to preemptively hate it, but why don’t you just sample some of it here? Or maybe you should just buy it right now.

I noticed this last night on a package of ‘Hearty Grains’ Thomas’ English Muffins:

Aren’t they describing the very parts of the English muffin that are nothing?

I mean, I know the “nooks & crannies” thing is their hook, but don’t start assigning adjectives to pockets of nothing; adjectives that are, by their very nature, describing qualities of things made of matter.

Have you ever heard an album that makes a sigificant percentage of the music you listen to suddenly make more sense? It all suddenly become related and connected in a natural progression? I had that experience when I started to listen to KRS-ONE. I always knew that Ultramagnetic MCs was a key group in hip-hop. I’ve always liked Dr. Octagon (Kool Keith and Dan the Automator), and Kool Keith’s flow is still unmatched in funk, kink, style, and vocab. But now that I finally got my hands on ’Critical Beatdown‘, so much hip-hop makes so much more sense. Another building block falls into place.

Also, it’s really damn good.