The Juno reunion is in a week and a half. Plans are afoot to do a professional filming of this event, so if you live in Outer Mongolia and cannot make it, you may be able to catch it in a few months (years, decades, etc.).

I'm still planning on doing a year-end 2CD set, but this process has been slowed considerably by the impending doom of final papers, grading, flying to Seattle, etc., so those may have to wait until the proper perspective of 2007.

I saw Borat, The Prestige, The Fountain, and Casino Royale in theaters over the last month. Borat is ridiculously funny, but if you're already overwhelmed with catchphrases spawning from the film, it may be best to wait until that dies down. I knew I was in a race against time when someone was spouting out every line from the movie on my T ride to the theater. The Prestige (magician movie with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, not Edward Norton) exceeded my expectations. It suffers from a bit too much late recap of the plot, but on the whole succeeds in developing compelling themes and letting the viewer ruminate over them after the film ended. If it hadn't been for The Illusionist, I think the hype over this movie would be more about the means vs. the ends of obsession rather than, you know, magic. The Fountain was Aronofsky's attempt to incorporate the philosophical ruminations of Kubrick's 2001 into a movie lasting barely more than ninety minutes. As expected, it was a decidedly mixed bag. There are some beautiful shots that add to the movie, some beautiful shots that seem completely unnecessary, and some beautiful shots that you'll see over and over, but the cinematography wasn't my primary issue. The primary themes seemed somewhat transparent in retrospect, leaving me with little to chew on after the credits. If the more subtle aspects of the film (repetition of symbols, etc.) add layers to this theme (the primacy of death to the human condition), so be it, but subtlety is not Aronofsky's foremost strength as a filmmaker, so relegating the success of his film to the background elements seems self-defeating. It's a mess that I'm more than willing to sit through again, a mess that I'm glad was made, but a mess nevertheless.

Casino Royale (or Casino Roy as my ticket stub calls it) lived up to the hype as one of the best, if not the best James Bond film. It's obviously a different type of film than its predecessors in how the wink-wink, nudge-nudge style of the gadgets, sexual encounters, and action sequences is almost eliminated in favor of grit and story, but you can relive those elements on Spike TV whenever you like.

As much as I herald purchasing physical copies of music*, grabbing Pinebender's new album Working Nine to Wolf on its official day of release without having heard any of the songs in advance (studio versions, at least) was a trip back to my high school purchasing habits. I've typically been fortunate to "find" such albums and know whether they're worth picking up long before the release date. Adding to this nostalgia, I even pulled my Discman out of a bin so I could listen to the CD on my drive over to campus.

Thankfully for my sanity, but unfortunately for Pinebender, the drive from Harvard Square to Boston College doesn't take a full hour, so I still haven't been able to hear the album in its entirety. This situation doesn't mean I'm incapable of recommending the disc, however, as "Parade of Horribles" joins the list of stunning Pinebender openers, possibly even surpassing reigning champion "There's a Bag of Weights in the Back of My Car" from Things Are About to Get Weird. "Parade" infuses Pinebender's stock of monolithic riffs and glacial drumming ("drudge") with a blues-informed sense of heaviness, both in sonics and in lyrical content. It was hard not to think of the title and "Relive this / Every November" in a political context after voting, but the overwhelming, palpable sense of dread certainly isn't limited to my voting district. Between these fourteen minutes and the twelve minutes of Tungsten74's "Waltz," space may become precious on my year-end discs.

* This practice usually occurs as follows: Enjoy album, see if vinyl is forthcoming, wait for vinyl release if possible, purchase in store if available, wait for large order from Parasol if it's not. I almost picked up Nina Nastasia's On Leaving LP in addition to the Pinebender CD, but decided to wait until I also grab both Norfolk and Western releases from this year on vinyl, Paik's Magnesium Fire DVD, Chin Up Chin Up's This Harness Can't Ride Anything, and the new Isis full-length LP. Sounds like it will be an expensive post-Christmas order.

Ahem. I have an announcement to make.

Juno will reunite to headline the annual KEXP Yule Benefit show at Neumos in Seattle on December 9 and 10 of 2006.

Tickets are now on sale. Go to TicketsWest and search "Juno." The Saturday show with the Junior Boys, the Annuals, and unnamed opening act starts at 8pm and appears to be 21+, while the Sunday show with Ted Leo, the Junior Boys, and the Cold War Kids starts at 7pm and is all ages. Tickets are $20, plus surcharges.

For those familiar with Juno, this news came directly from Arlie Carstens. “It’s gonna be deeply weird, but likely a very nice time. And loud.” Rehearsals are approaching, so if you’re already in Seattle, you might soon be able to hear the thunderous, life-affirming roar of “Covered with Hair” seeping out from a long dormant practice space. Jason Lajeunesse will assume bass duties for this event, much like he did for their 2001 tour.

If you’re unfamiliar with Juno, their two astounding full-length releases, 1999’s This Is the Way It Goes and Goes and Goes and 2001’s A Future Lived in Past Tense await your undivided attention for the next two months. If you need a sample, “When I Was in _____” happens to be my favorite song ever. If you’d prefer a more thought-out summation of their brilliance, I direct you to the top spot on New Artillery’s Top 40 of the 2000s.

Yes, I will be there. With goddamn bells on.

After almost two years of frequently infuriating service, I finally quit on my Creative Zen Touch 40gb mp3 player. Both the hardware and software aspects of the player had become torturous in recent months.

The Zen Touch worked fairly well for its first year of existence, exhibiting only a few oddities—freezing, splicing bits of other songs into the current selection—that could be fixed by inserting a paper clip to hit the reset button. After an unfortunate drop last winter, such instances increased tenfold, while the booting up / shutting down process became treacherous. Slightly bent paper clips litter my apartment, car, bags, office, etc. I could tell the hard drive was on its way out, and I had ample evidence for this prognostication.

I had picked up a 5gb Creative Zen Micro for my wife a few months after I picked up my Zen Touch, and that player lasted even less time, first succumbing to a fairly common faulty headphone jack, a problem I was able to fix, and then capitulating to a dead hard drive. We hadn’t even dropped this one, but of course, the Zen Touch had the extended warranty and the Zen Micro’s warranty had just ran out.

Adding insult to injury, the Zen Touch had major issues with my old laptop (foremost: refusing to connect to it), so I made a huge mistake by updating the firmware to the PlaysForSure standard. This move caused issues with Notmad Manager, the excellent third-party software that I purchased to replace Creative’s wretched bundled software, thereby forcing me to sync new songs with, God forbid, Windows Media Player. I blame my wonky player, not Notmad in this case.

In the interest of conceivable longevity, I decided to give up on hard drive–based mp3 players for the time being and switch over to the highest capacity flash-based player, the new 8gb iPod Nano. My contentious relationship with the Zen Touch aside, I would greatly prefer to have a large capacity player, but I just couldn’t stomach the idea of owning another clicking brick in thirteen months.

I’ve heard my share of iPod-related grumbling, but I secretly hoped to avoid unwieldy hardware problems and frowning images of doom. Well. It took all of one day before I had to exchange said Nano at Best Buy. A high-pitched whine threatened to drive me slowly insane or, at the very least, give me a consistent headache. The exchange process was easy enough and I suppose I’d rather deal with this sort of issue now rather than in thirteen months.

The player itself—the new, quiet one—is admittedly a fairly astonishing piece of machinery. You’ve seen them. They’re tiny. Mine’s black. It has solitaire on it.

I had never installed iTunes before, hating the idea of a resource-hogging library system, but I succumbed to its wily charms in order to get music onto said player. Sorry Winamp. (If anyone has any experience with Anapod, Red Chair Software’s iPod equivalent of Notmad, please comment.) I enjoy the album artwork and the album-sorted view, but only 50% of the albums automatically downloaded the covers and two of the albums split their tracks into multiple album entries.

As for the actual music making it onto the player, cutting back on 24 gigs of music was a tricky task. I still have a few hundred megs to fill, but the primary casualty so far has been having multiple albums from a single artists. I already have a tendency to create best-of compilations for my favorite artists (so far: Mogwai, Archers of Loaf, Polvo, Silkworm, Pavement), so this situation could easily get out of hand.

Since Michael Dahlquist's unfortunate, untimely, and unnecessary passing last summer, my affinity for his work in Silkworm has only grown. The band showed no signs of losing steam, growing bored, or interpersonal tension, and likely could have put out excellent records until their grandkids started their own bands in tribute. It didn't surprise me when Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen decided to forge ahead with a new band, but I nevertheless approached Bottomless Pit with a slight bit of apprehension. Would I be able to get over Dahlquist's absence? Would they?

My answer didn't come with Bottomless Pit's performance in Boston this past Friday, which I missed in part because of that apprehension (but mostly because of the inflated Boston ticket price for headliners Magnolia Electric Company), but with the band's posting of four songs on their web site. Recent memory can't produce a hand-hits-forehead moment like this one. These songs are superbly crafted and as moving as anything Silkworm recorded. Judging from the elegiac sweep of "Human Out of Me" and the restained optimism of the 1980s New Order vibe of "The Cardinal Movements," Tim Midgett takes this turn as a chance to reflect upon the past, musically and personally. "Those dreams are neverending / I know it's always hard to hear," Midgett sings with stoic grace. Andy Cohen's "Dead Man's Blues" lurks and seethes with his usual vigor, highlighting his interplay with newfound guitarist Midgett, while sighs "I saw the connection there / On the way down / Missed our connection there / On our way down" before a surge of cathartic guitars. The new rhythm section—former Seam drummer Chris Manfrin and .22 bassist Brian Orchard—fills in admirably, trading off Dahlquist's enormous footprint and Midgett's expressive bass lines for a more streamlined approach.

My soundtrack for reading in the BC library has typically been Tarentel's aptly titled singles compilation, Ephemera. Unlike their recent work, in which texture and atmosphere form the backbone of many songs, early Tarentel tracks (namely this compilation and the stellar From Bone to Satellite) build songs up from the smallest available pieces, whether a stray bit of feedback or a softly picked note, gradually forming sturdy, expressive post-rock songs and letting them evaporate into the original miasma. "The Waltz" might be the finest of these tracks, a crescendo so glacial one might not even notice the arrival (or departure) of the drums.

That said, the second track on the new-ish Tungsten74 album, Binaurally Yours (see comments section of previous entry), happens to be titled "Waltz." And you know what? It destroys that Tarentel song. Absolutely kills it. Everything that I've loved about Tungsten74 has been distilled into twelve-and-a-half minutes of psychedelic, progressive post-rock, cabinets stocked full of carefully controlled feedback and surging melodies. The biggest potential caveat for a shorter, digestable Tungsten74 record is that it risks crippling their foremost strength—a compelling tendency to wander headlong into huge expanses of sound—but "Waltz" represents the best possible result of this shift from the epic travels of the two-disc Aleatory Element. All I'm capable of doing right now is replaying the section from the 9:20 mark until the end of the song, over and over, jaw agape from both the locked-in groove and the swirling layers of its aching yet propulsive melodies. It wouldn't be fair to expect two full discs of songs this tightly crafted, but Tungsten74 is at work on another album.

I'm both mad at myself for not hearing this album earlier and thrilled that penciling in a spot for this record in my year-end list was completely warranted.

According to Ghost Wars’ MySpace page, their album is almost finished. Ghost Wars, for those caught unaware, is Arlie Carstens’ post-Juno project with Eric Fisher and a rotating cast of additional musicians. The three tracks posted are unfinished demos, but they offer considerable promise in terms of aesthetic variance and songwriting depth. I still don’t know when their album might actually be released—the fear is that this becomes my personal “follow-up to Loveless” dilemma—but any news is great news. I mention this because I’m going to list my top 20 albums of the year to this point, and if Ghost Wars were to be released up to and including December 31, 2006, everything would likely shift down one spot.

Other potential caveats include my inexplicable inability to grab the new Tungsten74 (Binaurally Yours), my baited breath for the new Pinebender album (Working Nine to Wolf), the forthcoming Life and Times EP, Mt. St. Helens’ Of Others (pending a new label; Divot folded), the next Lights Out Asia (Tanks and Recognizers), and the potential that something great comes out that I wasn’t even anticipating. This list is organized in tiers (starting with 20–15) and commentary is sparse. It’s August, so there’s a lot of listening (and purchasing) to come before December, but keep these in mind.

Isis and Aereogramme - In the Fishtank 14
Judah Johnson - Be Where I Be
Mock Orange and the Band Apart - Daniels EP
Norfolk and Western - A Gilded Age
Vetiver - To Find Me Gone

Mock Orange has been my band of the year for 2006, but that’s primarily been because of the First EP and Mind Is Not Brain, not this grab bag of a split EP. Judah Johnson resides on my new favorite label, Flameshovel, but I’m torn over whether this record shifts them toward AOR yearning (see also: Jeremy Enigk’s World Waits) or more successful songwriting.

Channels - Waiting for the Next End of the World
Hammock - The Sleepover Series Vol. 1
Radio Dept. – Pet Grief
Russian Circles - Enter
Timeout Drawer - Alone EP

Hammock’s excursion into strictly ambient music is a success, even if that means it’s less memorable than their other records. The synth-pop of the Radio Dept. is more oriented for successful singles (“The Worst Taste in Music,” “Every Time”) than consistency, but they give it a shot.

I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness - Fear Is on Our Side
Jesu - Silver EP
Mission of Burma - The Obliterati
Nina Nastasia - On Leaving
Paik – Monster of the Absolute

Paik’s album is a close second to The Orson Fader in their catalog; cutting the expanse makes it easier to digest, but eliminates some of the appeal. Jesu’s Silver EP emphasizes the shoegazing tendencies of the full-length to the absolute benefit of the material.

Chin Up Chin Up – This Harness Can’t Ride Anything
Cursive - Happy Hollow
Errors - How Clean Is Your Acid House?
Isis - In the Absence of Truth
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Chin Up Chin Up was a big surprise—the title track and “Water Planes in Snow” had me absolutely hooked—and as an added bonus, the vinyl comes out on Flameshovel. Errors is only available on import from Mogwai’s label, which is unfortunate because their electronic-enhanced post-rock is far more memorable than Mogwai’s Mr. Beast. I need to hear the TV on the Radio more in its “official” track order, but the songs are excellent however you arrange ’em.

In other news, I had no clue that Zach Barocas of Jawbox fame wrote a book of poetry.

In case you were wondering, the new header graphic features, from left to right, the hands of my friends Rick and Jackie, leaves from Sixth Street in Champaign (across from the parking garage on Daniel), the ghostly visage of Matt Mitchell of Rectangle, a view of a Hawaii sunset, bricks from one of the engineering buildings at the University of Illinois, the headstock of Shiner singist/guitarist Allen Epley's yellow Telecaster, the drumkit of Trans Am's Sebastian Thomson, some Urbana shrubbery, the blonde mane of Milemarker's Roby Newton, the fretboard of Allen Epley's yellow Tele, and finally, Allen Epley's Chavez shirt turned into a pink blaze during a Life and Times show at the Cowboy Monkey in Champaign. I thought about cutting down on the Epley, but seeing how I have both taken more pictures of Shiner/The Life and Times than almost any other band and how more of those have turned out well, it was hard to say no.

I'm considering eliminating this blog and switching over to a purely feature-based site. This move would mean the revival of the 1000 Songs project (and possibly a parallel 500 Albums project), the gradual reincorporation of my photography tree (an overdue endeavor by any means), and the elimination of the commentary for my summer reading list. Why? The typical topics of discussion—current records, recent shows, recent purchases—have been remarkably dry of late, and I enjoy reading books far more than summarizing the experience in a few trite sentences. I don’t remember intentionally shelving the 1000 Songs feature, rather, I wasn’t sure how to fit it into the new Textpattern arrangement. I’m far more comfortable writing about music I genuinely care about instead of records that might possibly hit my year-end list.

Of course, this diary-styled blog is far, far easier than actual content.

If you have any preference on this matter, if you happen to read this site at all, please comment so I can get some level of audience input.

Bulgakov, Mikhail. The Fatal Eggs. 104 pp.
Greene, Graham. The End of the Affair. 238 pp.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Ada. 626 pp.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Glory. 205 pp.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Laughter in the Dark. 292 pp.

The sparring of my two tasks—completing my initial reading list and tackling my newfound task of reading all of Nabokov’s novels—isn’t much of a match at this point, but I’m still chiseling away at both. The Fatal Eggs meets neither qualification, but in lieu of reading Flight and Bliss, I decided to read Bulgakov’s scientific/political satire. Like Heart of a Dog, the novella length prevents Bulgakov from truly inhabiting his characters, but allows for more direct cultural critique. The vision of enormous snakes crawling their way to Moscow could inspire a sequel to Snakes on a Plane (which I’m boycotting in theaters; I’d far prefer to go laugh at a movie when other people might possibly be taking it seriously, cough, Alien vs. Predator), but the social repercussion of scientific advances is still relevant. Worth the quick read.

The End of the Affair marks one of those awkward instances of having seen a film adaptation first (the 1999 Julianne Moore version; I’m not sure how well I could handle seeing a young Grand Moff Tarkin play Henry Miles), but that viewing was a few years ago and it didn’t taint the experience of the novel. Infidelity and jealousy have been fairly consistent themes in the Nabokov segment of this reading list, but the resounding sincerity and religious implications at work here made the two worlds seem almost entirely foreign. Those in charge of Greene’s collection at BC discussed how he received a deluge of letters from housewives pleading of his advice/permission for such illicit affairs, and could only respond with dry uniformity that he was, in fact, an author, and this story was not based on personal experience. Something tells me they didn’t believe him.

This round’s trio of Nabokov novels started with Ada and I’m not entirely sure where I stand on that novel yet, so I’ll keep my comments to a minimum. The gap between knowing I should reread a novel and chomping at the bit to do so divides Ada from Pale Fire, Bend Sinister, and Pnin, but at this point, I’ll call Ada a compelling, extended meditation and leave it there.

Glory has its moments—Martin’s fistfight with Darwin, the discussion of the value of various academic disciplines, Martin’s realization of his mutable nationality, and particularly its vague, compelling ending—but its drifting nature and (somewhat intentionally) bland characters take it down a notch.

Laughter in the Dark may lack some of the linguistic games and structural complications of Nabokov’s later novels, but once the primary relationship started, I tore through it like a man possessed. Despite his admitted distaste for dialogue, the dialogue, or more precisely, the tiny breathes of internal monologues poking through the dialogue, is where Laughter truly shines, honing its bleak tone to perfection. I understand why the Lolita comparisons arise, but the strength of Laughter is that tone rather than rapturous prose, separating the two novels somewhat significantly in my mind.