Blog

- Favourite albums:

1. Massive Attack - Heligoland

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2. Bonobo - Black Sands

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3. Valgeir Sigurðsson - Draumalandið

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I bought this album right after the phenomenal Whale Watching Tour (Ben Frost | Nico Muhly | Sam Amidon | Valgeir Sigurðsson with Una Sveinbjarnardóttir & Borgar Magnason) concert in Berlin.

Draumalandið is the soundtrack to an icelandic documentary about the exploitation of Iceland's natural resources of the same name.
Amongst others, the score features Valgeir's collaborators and Bedroom Community labelmates Ben Frost, Sam Amidon and Nico Muhly.
This leads to a very wide instrumentarium (for example, combining electronic sounds with hauting string sections and banjo) while still managing to keep a coherent overall sound.
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Albums of the year


http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/e1291fb88cdb7ec9cae2feda4986bf00/2812082.jpg
1. http://www.theodora.com/flags/tiny/united_kingdom_flag-tt.jpg Crippled Black Phoenix - I, Vigilante (atmospheric rock)



http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/fa39812d60210a2a3e958b3204066c5e/2693437.jpg
2. http://www.theodora.com/flags/tiny/france_flag-tt.jpg Alcest - Écailles de lune (post black)



http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/e8727d3f45f186b4fe59ec7fd30ce075/1572925.jpg
3. http://www.theodora.com/flags/tiny/united_kingdom_flag-tt.jpg Anathema - We're Here Because we are Here (atmospheric rock)



http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/75a04b5b509c0f3b17e6daf2df21c697/2694413.jpg
4. http://www.theodora.com/flags/tiny/ireland_flag-tt.jpg God Is an Astronaut - Age of the Fifth Sun (post rock)



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2raumwohnung
30 Seconds to Mars

AC/DC
A Day Of Mine
Adolar
Alice in Chains
Airbourne
Arctic Monkeys
All Time Low
An Horse
Angus & Julia Stone
Anti-Flag
Arcade Fire 2x
awkward i

Band of Horses
Beastie Boys
BEAT!BEAT!BEAT! 2x
Beatsteaks 2x
Ben Harper and Relentless7
Biffy Clyro
Billy Talent 2x
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
blink-182
Bloc Party
Bosse
Broken Circle

Calexico
Captain Capa
Casper
Clueso
Corinne Bailey Rae
Crazy Arm
Crookers

Danko Jones
Das Goldene Handwerk
Deftones
Deichkind
Dendemann
Depeche Mode
Die Ärzte 2x
Die Fantastischen Vier 2x
Die Happy
Die Toten Hosen 3x
Disturbed
Donots 2x
dredg
Dropkick Murphys 2x

Eagles of Death Metal
ear-O-tation
Editors 2x
Egotronic 3x
Elbow
Enter Shikari 2x

F-Three 2x
Faithless 2x
Faith No More
Fetsch 7x
Fettes Brot
Flogging Molly 2x
Florence + the Machine
FM Belfast
Foo Fighters 2x
Fotos
Frank Turner 3x
Franz Ferdinand
Frittenbude

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The 25000th scrobbled track was Moby: Dream about me.

A list of the nations from which my last.fm overall TOP 100 artists come from:

1. USA 38 (I'm too lazy)
2. Great Britain 27.5 (Still too lazy)
3. France 6 (Air, Black Devil Disco Club, Grace Valhalla, M83, Serge Gainsbourg, Trespassers William)
4. Finland 6 (Juliet Jonesin Sydän, Leevi and the Leavings. Liekki, Nazca, Rinneradio, Wilma)
5. Canada 4 (A Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, Esmerine, Godspeed You! Black Emperor)
6. Italy 3 (Ennio Morricone, French Teen Idol, port-royal)
7. Sweden 3 (Hello Saferide, Porn Sword Tobacco, Sally Shapiro)
8. Germany 3 (Alva Noto, Einsturzende Neubauten, Milhaven)
9. Ireland 2 (Enya, God Is an Astronaut)
10. Norway 2 (Röyksopp, The White Birch)
11. Iceland 1 (Sigur Rós)
12. Australia 1 (Dead Can Dance)
13. Denmark 1 (The Seven Mile Journey)
14. Switzerland 1 (Yello)
15. Greece (Vangelis)
16. Japan 0.5 (Mono)

Did this last time at 5000 scrobbles…

1.How did you get into 29? (Melvins)
Curiosity.

2. What's the first song you ever heard by 22? (Tin Hat)
The Longest Night

3. What's your favorite lyric by 33? (The Stupid Stupid Henchmen)
The Storm!

4. How did you get into 49? (James Plotkin)
Khanate

5. How many albums by 13 do you own? (Faun Fables)
0

6. What is your favorite song by 50? (Khlyst)
VII

7. Is there a song by 39 that makes you sad? (Boredoms)
No.

8. What is your favorite song by 15? (The Book Of Knots)
The Ballad of John Henry. Tension bass ftw!

9. What is your favorite song by 5? (Dysrhythmia)
Bastard

10. Is there a song by 6 that makes you happy? (The Dillinger Escape Plan)
No

11. What is the worst song by 40? (Jarboe)
The House of Void (Visceral Mix)

12. What is your favorite song by 10? (Atomsmasher)
Gilgamesh

13. What is a good memory you have involving 30? (Metallica)
Bonding with my father.

14. What is your favorite song by 38? (B-Squad)
tessin' me

…

40466 scrobbles by 24th December 2008. Due to technical reasons I didn’t start scrobbling properly until 25th Dec 2007 and my play count was pretty negligible before then, so here’s how my top 200 looked after a full year of scrobbling in the form of chart position – artist – play count. By 9th Jan 2009 the top 50 artists all had playcounts over 200. I’m a sucker for stats. :)

1. Rome 3,176

2. Tiamat 1,552

3. Current 93 1,516

4. Anathema 1,221

5. Tom Waits 937

6. Of the Wand and the Moon 920

7. Death in June 879

8. Agalloch 734

9. My Morning Jacket 598

10. Summoning 548

11 Nauthisuruz 539

12 Dark Sanctuary 511

13 Van Morrison 500

14 Allison Crowe 464

15 Alcest 414

16 Drudkh 409

17 H.E.R.R. 401

18 Godspeed You! Black Emperor 393

19 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 385

20 Sol Invictus 364

21 Judge 363

22 Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio 360

23 Empyrium 349

24 Hatebreed 339

25 Spirit Caravan 334

26 Volksweerbaarheid 298

27 My Dying Bride 296
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The launch of "new" version of last.fm.
http://blog.last.fm/2008/07/17/lastfm-the-next-generation

I am one of those who feel disappointed: the "new" website has lost the best part - simplicity - of the good old last.fm. What are these lame images scattered all over? Why is my (and any other members) avator so big? And the whole site is sooooo slow, even though this is not the first time with last.fm.

However I quite like one of the new features I have just discovered: Personalised Podcasts. This is new, isn't it? (I didn't visit the last.fm profile page very often so I might have been missing this feature, though.)

On the home page, that is http://www.last.fm/home , you see "Personalised Podcasts" section. Click on there and you'll have http://www.last.fm/home/freemp3s . There is a list of free mp3 files available on last.fm, according to your musical taste. Mine seems like quite "indie", "dance" and "post-rock". I will give it a try later.
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