I received my copy of Isis's In the Absence of Truth 2LP from Robotic Empire yesterday. I managed to get one of only 299 copies of the violet vinyl, which is both attractive and sought-after on eBay, selling for forty to eighty dollars. Does anyone think I should hold onto this particular copy rather than put it on eBay and buy the (likely) black vinyl copy from Newbury Comics?

I felt lucky to receive that package, since mailing packages to my apartment is a game of chance against thieves. I've had a few packages stolen, so I typically try to mail things to my parents' house, but I had forgotten to do this with the Isis LP. The best story that I have about stolen mail is from this Christmas. I was anticipating a package from Amazon from my sister-in-law, so when I got back to the apartment and saw an Amazon box in the garbage can, I pulled it out. To my surprise, someone had unwrapped the Sealab 2021 DVD, put it back in box, ignored the other present, and threw the box away. It's one thing to open up a package, steal its contents, and sell them, but whatever thought process must've occured, perhaps "I already own this season" or "I really wanted Love Actually," is just baffling. The story gets better, though. Later that day I went downstairs and saw that someone had stolen the garbage can from our entranceway, throwing its contents onto the floor. Who does this sort of thing?

I had even put up a sign saying not to leave packages for me the day that the Isis LP arrived, but it was still sitting there when I got back from class.

My attempt to listen to the entire contents of my iPod on random without skipping hit a snag: the necessity of charging. Once iTunes loaded, I said goodbye to my old random playlist. I had 167 songs down before iTunes intruded on my fun, but I realized that I could sort by last listening date, which made it easy to grab the rest of the songs, put them in a playlist, and shuffle that playlist. The purity of iPod Chicanery has been lost, but at least I can still continue with the project.

I'm currently near the end of song 193, John Coltrane's "Locomotion." Here are the recent trends, highlights, and lowlights of note:

Biggest Rebound: After almost nothing happened in the first few minutes of Múm's "Sunday Night Just Keeps on Rolling," a horrible condition for late-night driving, I almost reconsidered my fondness for Yesterday Was Dramatic—Today Is Okay. But as I remembered that Múm songs have a tendency to begin with little or fall apart halfway through, "Sunday Night" started to gain steam, helping keep me awake until I reached my destination.

Stealthy Long Song: I seemed to recall something being amiss with the Rolling Stones' "Going Home" (from the US edition of Aftermath, but it wasn't until the three-minute mark that I picked up my iPod and recognized that eight more minutes remained. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but I don't expect eleven-minute jaunts from the Rolling Stones. I leave that to Tarentel.

Best Pairing: Hearing Múm's "Smell Memory" (my favorite track from Yesterday Was Dramatic followed by Clark's "Roulette Thrift Run" made particular sense in terms of genre, but following up the ebb and flow of the former with the emphatic pulse of the latter just clicked. "Roulette Thrift Run" wasn't my favorite song from Body Riddle, but this combination helped it step out from the shadow of "The Autumnal Crash," "Ted," and "Frau Wav."

Surprise Appearance: I drew an absolute blank when Solbakken's "Relaxing Yourself to Death" came on, but then remembered that I had put the excellent Klonapet on, drawing from the strength of "Love Interest," "Space Bordello," and "Dung." My blank might have been due to how Solbakken is Dutch, but sounds like late '80s/early '90s Boston indie rock (Volcano Suns, Flying Nuns).

Breakthrough: I've always appreciated Television's Marquee Moon, but when "Elevation" came on, I didn't think about that and actually, you know, enjoyed it. Tom Verlaine's vocals have always bothered me a bit, but considering how many contemporary bands do a similar style of slightly unhinged vocals, I've probably had that impulse tempered since I last pulled out Marquee Moon.

Worst Timing: I considered blowing off this entire project on Monday when I needed something to drown out the din of nearby conferences at my office but not something that featured prominent vocals. After listening to Accelera Deck's "Passerine," which worked well with Debord's The Society of the Spectacle, I tried (and failed) to listen to Echo & the Bunnymen's "Bring on the Dancing Horses" while retaining any knowledge of the text. Seeing that Bottomless Pit's excellent "The Cardinal Movements" was up next, I opted to put away the iPod and save that song for the ride home.

Aside from a curiously formed preference for Dan Marino over Joe Montana, I didn't start following football with any rooting interest until I went to college in Illinois. My roommate Rick made sure that he had more than enough time to watch the Bears game every weekend, and since the Colts were the regional AFC team, I ended up watching both teams most weeks as well. One solid defense, one solid offense. The Bears also played in Champaign during my time in school, but given my complete inability to purchase tickets for live sporting events in advance, I missed out on that opportunity.

I suppose the Marino over Montana bias lingered, since I have always preferred Manning's big numbers and play-clock theatrics over Tom Brady's winning ways. My dislike for the Patriots started after they won their first Super Bowl. Beating the Rams (I may have lived in the Midwest, but I have no affinity for any St. Louis team) and Kurt Warner was one thing, but after they beat ther Colts to make it to Super Bowl XXXVI and subsequently defeat the Carolina Panthers (a hard team to root for, I assure you), the talk of their "dynasty" and Tom Brady's place in history began. I couldn't believe that two championships in three years equated to a dynasty, even in an age of parity. When they came back the next season and defeated the Colts in the opening round on their way to beat the Eagles, I couldn't begrudge their claim to such language, but that particular game brought the realization of my primary reason for disliking the Patriots: how arrogant they'd become from this success.

So much of the national hype and love for the Patriots has involved how they "do the right thing" and set a positive model for a "true team." I remember hearing constant talk about how they were above poor forms of sportsmanship, but nevertheless, they routinely stepped down to T.O.'s level in that Super Bowl to mock his celebrations. I started noticing just how much they celebrated after every play, every down. L.T.'s post-game tirade last week was overblown, but got at the core of my issue with the Pats. Acting like you've been there before isn't the most exciting form of celebration, but it's not nearly as off-putting, either.

Meanwhile, I enjoyed watching the Colts. Peyton Manning was the opposite of the caretaker quarterback; he took chances, tried to make plays, brought excitement to the game. He wasn't coming up huge in the playoffs, but I remember watching the Red Wings have to claw their way up the playoff ladder before they finally broke through to the finals and to the Cup two years later. Every response to Manning's shortcomings, to the Colts' failures, seemed overblown, unaware of this progression. Tom Brady stepped into a situation and won a Super Bowl, but certainly didn't win it on his own, which was what analysts expected Manning to do.

Last year's push for an undefeated season was great, but even if Nick Harper's shoestrings hadn't betrayed a sure touchdown, the fact that the Broncos, not the Colts, had dethroned the Patriots made a potential Colts championship seem underwhelming. The Colts didn't manage to get homefield throughout the playoffs this year, but beat the Patriots to get homefield against them. I couldn't bring myself to actually root for the Patriots against the Jets or Chargers, but I knew the Colts had to beat them in order to truly get over the hump.

Manning's first two playoff games were different from playoffs past. Despite the interception totals, he wasn't risking his team's chance to win. It's hard not to think of Yzerman's shift from offensive juggernaut to two-way threat under Scotty Bowman. Yzerman's statistics went down, but they had to for the good of the team. The Colts defense also finally looked impressive, particularly Bob Sanders, who I enjoy thinking of as a human missile.

The AFC Championship delivered almost every poetic turn I could imagine. The Colts were down big early on the strength of another baffling display of the Patriots' combination of grit and luck (the fumble for TD) and a poor decision on Manning's part, but the last drive of the first half helped them regain their composure. I was watching the game with a few Patriots fans and enjoyed pointing out how the Colts could easily score a TD with the opening possession of the second half and bring the game within one score. Once Manning wore down the Patriots' defense with his newfound patience, he could finally play his game. The Colts scored on a two-minute drill with Manning's seemingly injured thumb and a nearly catastropic Reggie Wayne reception (the sort of play that would have gone the other way almost any other game), but won the game with the Brady interception. The Wings not only needed to beat the Avalanche in order to have another shot at the Stanley Cup, but had to adjust their game in order to beat the Avalanche. The Colts adjusted.

Throughout the season I had hoped that the stars would align in the playoffs and I would be granted a Bears v. Colts Super Bowl. With a few rare exceptions, I'm typically underwhelmed by the teams that make the Super Bowl, but this match-up is great on paper and for my rooting interests. As you might have guessed from the comparative emphasis in this post, I'm rooting for the Colts, but it's great to have a championship game in which I'll be happy with either outcome.

Now all I need is a Detroit Red Wings v. Buffalo Sabres Stanley Cup final.

When I purchased my 8gb iPod Nano back in October, I recognized that my listening habits would change, since the switch from my 40gb Creative Zen Touch required a significant paring-down of my listening pile. My initial idea was to only include my favorite albums and recent acquisitions, but my usual habit of listening to all of the music on shuffle proved this inclination to be a mistake. Sure, I loved almost all of it, but I got overly skip-happy in routine searches for the perfect song for a given moment.

After dumping a number of standards (roughly five gigs of them), I filled the remaining space with records I hadn’t heard in a while (Arab Strap’s Philophobia, Glossary’s This Is All We’ve Learned about Living, Dis-’s The Historically Troubled Third Album), records I knew I would (cough, should) like but had never heard all the way through (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s I See a Darkness, Wire’s Chairs Missing and 154, DJ Shadow’s Preemptive Strike, Fugazi’s Red Medicine), and a few different genre excursions.

Most of my iPod listening occurs in the car, so it didn’t take long for this new digitized stack of records to suffer my “next song, please” habits. After a disappointing hour of driving, I decided that I would re-shuffle the songs and listen to all 1164 of them in that order, all the way through. No skipping. I’m not listening to my iPod exclusively, only when I regularly would.

This project started on January 11. I’ve managed to listen to 113 songs in that period—most of them have been in the car, but walking and reading have also been accompanied by the whims of my consumer electronic device. In retrospect, I would have liked to update every day that I listened to my iPod (I’ll try to update more regularly now), but here are the high and low points so far:

Best Reward: I’d heard Will Oldham before, particularly enjoying Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s Master and Everyone, but I hadn’t given much attention to I See a Darkness despite its critical acclaim. But when the title track came on while driving down Cambridge Street, I was captivated. I wanted the next traffic light to stay red until the song finished and the rest of the record to play in order. Neither of these happened, but “I See a Darkness” is still the best song that I’ve heard thanks to this endeavor. The entire song is remarkably affecting, but the best part is when Oldham says “buddy” in the second verse.

Most Trying Song: Accelera Deck’s “As Always” came up on the drive back from Boston College on Tuesday night, a poor time for a very gradual, fourteen minute swell of processed guitar. The first half of Pop Polling has great songs, whereas the second half (which closes with “As Always”) is more structurally and sonically severe. Perhaps worse than the first eight minutes of exceptional quiet that begins “As Always” is the knowledge that the jarring noise of “Sunskull” still waits in the wings.

Excellent Old Favorite: The math-rock riffs and monotone sarcasm of “Do All of the Good Ones Have Muslim Names?” mark one of the best moments on The Historically Troubled Third Album, which sounds like it could use a mastering job. I don’t run into too many Dis- fans nowadays, but that record holds up well in the songwriting department.

Best Stretch: Juno’s “When I Was in ____” came on during the final part of my drive to campus on Wednesday. “The French Letter” and “January Arms” made up much of my drive home. I was almost disappointed that these songs weren’t spread out over the entire span. Almost.

Begrudging Acceptance: After hearing the title track from Emperor Tomato Ketchup, I thought “Stereolab sounds like a car commercial for socialists.” “Cybele’s Reverie” is still great, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to sit through an entire album.

Worst Timing: Tarentel’s “For Carl Sagan” came on part of the way to Chestnut Hill this morning and I knew that I wouldn’t make it through the entire song before parking. After removing the key from the ignition I realized that I had the final four minutes of feedback to listen to at a later time. Splitting up the entire arc of that song ruined the listening experience—who wants to come back to the closing waves?

Best Timing: I walked home from MIT Friday night to the aching mock-closure of Pavement’s “Fillmore Jive.” Guitar solos flooded the crisp evening air.

One of the biggest hurdles for my top twenty of 2006 and the subsequent 2CD mixes (which are done, by the way—I’ll post track listings and pictures soon) was the leak of the new Eluvium record, Copia. I’d never listened to Eluvium, but since this particular record leaked at the same time as the new Explosions in the Sky (All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone), I grabbed it and found that it far surpassed the EITS album. Consequently I tracked down all of the other Eluvium releases and found myself drawn to those records more than many of my candidates for year-end honors.

Eluvium, a one-man project from Matthew Cooper, started out closer to the ambient branch of post-rock—muted instrumentation gliding into carefully crafted waves (listen to from 2003’s Lambent Material and “New Animals from Air” from 2005’s Talk Amongst the Trees) and occasionally swelling into feedback. But Eluvium’s 2004 release An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death chose a much different course, opting for a solo performance of neoclassical piano suites instead of layers of studio trickery. These songs, particularly the title track and “The Well-Meaning Professor,” do an excellent job of being playful with recurring themes, heightening the tension when necessary, and letting the compositions breathe. I typically don’t listen to much classical music, but when I do it’s quite minimal (Arvo Pärt’s Alina, for example), so An Accidental Memory is actually a bit busier than usual. After Talk Among the Trees and a solid, if unspectacular 2006 EP, When I Live by the Garden and the Sea (highlighted by “I Will Not Forget that I Have Forgotten”), Copia fulfills the promise of An Accidental Memory’s neoclassical designs with fuller arrangements, populated by traditionally classical instrumentation (strings, brass), not the occasional shoegaze-derived guitar marking earlier releases. When the absolute grace of the brass opener “Amreik” leads into the intertwined layers of the album’s epic, “Indoor Swimming at the Space Station,” it’s hard not to imagine spending the full hour with Copia. “Prelude for Time Feelers” encapsulates the album’s modes and strengths—piano figures lead into gradually accumulating layers of instrumentation, building subtle crescendos and then whisking such drama away. The literal fireworks punctuating “Repose in Blue” close the album, contrasting with the serene framework set below.

Copia has even seeped into times and situations I traditionally devote for up-tempo rock music, namely walking and driving around Boston. “Indoor Swimming at the Space Station” could play continuously underneath my daily activities with no resistance.

Copia officially comes out February 20, but Temporary Residence has hinted about a forthcoming vinyl release, so I’m going to put off pre-ordering or purchasing the CD. It seems less likely that the other Eluvium albums will be released on vinyl anytime soon, so I figure I’m safe getting those on CD. Right?

I added Dustin Long’s Icelander to my Amazon wish list after stumbling upon his Listmania entry on “Books that you might like.” The first two entries—Nabokov’s Pale Fire and Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman—provide much of the blueprint for Icelander, a postmodern satire of literary authorship in the guise of a murder mystery. The first third of the novel suffers from this tribute; the footnotes add little to the actual text, interrupting an already slow-building narrative. Once Long opts to rotate the narrative perspective, however, Icelander begins to take better shape, setting “Our Heroine” against a number of other voices, some (Blaise Duplain) more compelling than the protagonist. Unlike some of the other indebted literary devices, the rotating cast of narrators feels natural, allowing for smoother shifts between storylines and helping to establish the mythological framework for his imagined community. This section also builds momentum for the resolution of the murder mystery, which may actually be more successful than its postmodern frame narrative.

I hand it to Dustin Long for choosing difficult texts to emulate and managing to be largely successful in applying their modes to his project. Even though Icelander isn’t as pointedly funny as The Third Policeman or as structurally refined as Pale Fire, few books are. Icelander is a worthy read for fans of those authors, but I hope for a much-improved second novel, one not so dominated by the spot-the-allusion game. If you’re on the edge on whether Icelander worth checking out, the hardcover edition of Icelander has a nicely embossed dust jacket–free cover and shames most of its neighbors on my bookshelf. Take that, secondhand D. H. Lawrence hardcovers.

That note provides a nice transition to my other recent read, Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution, since its cover art was featured in Jay Ryan’s 100 Posters, 134 Squirrels: A Decade of Hot Dogs, Large Mammals, and Independent Rock, something I remembered when I saw it in the clearance section of Barnes and Noble. The Final Solution is about an elderly detective’s search for the missing parrot of a mute Jewish boy in 1944, but leaves many of its most successful themes simmering under the surface, foremost whether the detective is actually Sherlock Holmes. It’s a quick read and not as emotionally heavy as the title might suggest, but Chabon’s subtlety helps extent the book past its page count (131 including a handful of illustrations from Ryan).

I’ve finished my top twenty records list for 2006. Yes, everyone in the blogosphere beat me to it, but I actually enjoy determining the records, writing about them, and designing the layout. Granted, the layout may look like an Old Navy advertisement, but I still prefer it to the eyesore I chose for 2005’s list. Between that design decision and the possibility that my top pick may have actually been released in 2005, I probably shouldn’t be self-promoting too heavily, but I like my now-standard fifty word descriptions and I do recommend every album on the list, even though it feels like a down year overall.

The artwork for my accompanying year-end 2CD mix isn’t finished yet, but if you’d like to hear selections from these records and other candidates, send me an e-mail (sebastian at newartillery dot com) with your mailing address. Thirty-five songs carefully whittled down for flow and fit in some handmade LP style packaging could be in your mail box shortly if you e-mail me or if I already have your address.

Those discs will likely reveal some of the runners-up for this list, but Maps and Atlases’ Trees, Swallows, Houses EP, The Radio Dept.’s Pet Grief, Elanors’ Movements, The Timeout Drawer’s Alone EP, and Cursive’s Happy Hollow are other noteworthy 2006 releases. Why didn’t they make it? Respectively: too busy for its own good, single-oriented, short life span in the listening pile, better release last year, and weak as individual parts.

Please bookmark junodoc.com if you're at all interested in the project. If you have anything to contribute (footage, pictures, stories, etc.), e-mail jon at junodoc.com rather than any of my e-mail addresses.

I am now contributing to Gerard Cosloy's sports blog Can't Stop the Bleeding. I would imagine that most hockey and sports content will be posted there, so if you come to New Artillery for my sporadic insight on the Red Wings' goaltending situation, bookmark CTSB.

The trip to Seattle for the two Juno reunion shows for the KEXP Winter Benefit was absolutely exhausting, but I can confirm that those plans to record the shows blossomed into what might be called film-ish or documentary-esque. Three camera shoots of both nights? Check. Sixteen-track audio of both shows? Check. Hours of interview footage with band members past and present? Check. Immediately available product? Well, no, but...

We should have a website devoted to this project in the very near future, so if you're reading this and have footage, photos or posters of Juno you'd like to contribute, e-mail me (sebastian at newartillery.com) to get the ball rolling.

I'd like to thank Arlie Carstens, Gabe Carter, Jason Guyer, Greg Ferguson, and Jason Lajuenesse for the entire weekend.

A selection of my pictures can be seen here.