You have to hit the ground.

P.S. If you don't want the ground to hit you first.

I'll be away for the next two weeks, Catherine and I are flying to Lanzarote tomorrow morning. Therefore don't expect any updates around here.

In the meantime you can check the blogroll.

I have the feeling that I will dig deeper into non-rock music next year. Right now I am intrigued by the Aussie improv band The Necks (two mp3s of their last release are over at one faint deluded smile). Instrumental music on the fringes of modern classical, minimal, jazz, ambient and I do not know what. They are a three piece unit with piano, drums and bass. The only comparisons I can come up with are fellow countrymen The Dirty Three (but more experimental and less tuneful) and Oregon (with less world music influence). After the few things I heard The Necks to me seem like one of the most ECM-sounding bands which are not on the label.

Another release I am very much interested in is the La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela collaboration The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath which I discovered in the recent ILM ambient and drone thread:

Other bands I don't know yet but should check which are more on the noisy side of the musical spectrum are the latest albums of The Boredoms (2004's #1 chez Marcello) from Nippon and Pan Sonic (Nick Gutterbreakz #1) from Suomi.

Sich einmal nur mit ihr betrinken und sie dann nie mehr wiedersehen.

werden maßlos überschätzt. Man sollte vielmehr ein Buch über erste Zigaretten schreiben. Die allererste ohne und mit Lungenzug, die erste am Morgen, die erste nach dem Sex, die erste nach dem Sport, die erste nach 24 Stunden, nach einer Woche, einem Monat etc. Das sind intensive Geschmacksempfindungen und Kicks. Wenn man innehält und für eine Zigarettenlänge die Zeit stillsteht. Inspiriert durch diese Besprechung von Cristina Peri Rossis Die Zigarette, die so anfängt:

Frage am Rande an die Handvoll deutschsprachiger Leser meiner Ergüsse: Hat jemand Zenos Gewissen von Italo Svevo gelesen und kann mir sagen, ob es sich lohnt?

I have always been dreaming of 24 hours (and more) parties. When I have finished the 40 albums series I would like to have a party chez nous with all those 40 albums playing from start to finish. Can be filed under utopias.

i don't think a smoker can stop smoking. of course he can stop in this life. but he will start again in the next one (i had this idea when reading in tom liwa's last newsletter that he didn't smoke for the last 13 months).

p.s. so i was right thinking that he had stopped smoking at the concert last year.

Is there a word in English for the state you are in when you haven't smoked for a couple of weeks and you are desperate for a fag? Detox or deprivation won't do. Those are clinical terms which do not convey the strong physical longing I am talking of. The weird thing with "Schmacht" is that it goes away very quickly. When it is there it is almost killing yourself but it does not leave any traces afterwards.

Catherine and I will be in Southern Norway for the next two weeks. Updates are extremely improbable.

what do you listen to when you're down and neil young doesn't do it for you anymore?