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Today I have been in quite a specific music mood. This happens quite often... so I thought I should start to note them down.

Today then, I'm feeling confused, sad, nostalgic and fairly concerned about something I feel I need to say to someone which could make the future really wonderful or really .. awkward.

Some tunes that express this... (most courtesy of http://pandora.com, with Swollen as the basis.)

You Are (Panacea)
Swollen
Bubble Love
Over And Over
Paint It Black
Nothing Like Tomorrow
All I Need (Loving Mix)
Troubled Mind
The Look of Love
Ghetto
Only Love
Bonfire
Silent Spring
Breathe Me (Mylo remix)
The Moment
The Girl Who Fell Through the Ice

Hm. 'Tis a sad and perplexing day.

So, I'm going to the Jungle.
Conservation charity trek (which by the way, I'm fundraising for... If you'd like to help me out...
http://trekforce.synfinity.net).

Two months, no civilisation, no electricity... no music?

Heck no!

I found a happy little iPod Solar Charger which I will most certainly be taking... The only problem is... what tunes do I take?

Here is what I reckon..

For the plane:
Some chillout, bit of liquid DnB:


Pendulum: Spiral

Pendulum: Still Grey

Pendulum: Plasticworld Feat. Fats & TC

Peace Orchestra: Who Am I? (Animatrix Edit)

Orbital: Halcyon & On & On

Orbital: Belfast

Orb: Little Fluffy Clouds

Omni Trio: Higher Ground

Nitin Sawhney: Homelands

Nitin Sawhney: Sunset (London Elektricity Mix)

Nitin Sawhney: Cold and Intimate (Landslide mix)

Nitin Sawhney: Homelands (Free Form Five mix)

MC Tali: London Elektricity & Mc Tali -- Rewind (Live version)

MC Tali: Blazin'

Lemon Jelly: Page One

ils: Next Level

Future Sound Of London: Papua New Guinea

Cinematic Orchestra: Kirwani

The Breaksfastaz: The Pressure

Breakbeat Era: Late Morning

For sleeping at night (block out the sound of howler monkeys?!):

Aim: Cold Water Music

Aim: The Girl Who Fell Through the Ice

Aimee Mann: Save Me

Alex Reece: Jazz Master

Funkstorung: Like a poet

Joe Clausell Vs. Nitin Sawhney: Buddha bar chill out in paris

Pendulum: Still Grey

RJD2: The Proxy

Rockers Hi-Fi: Going Under

Talvin Singh: Traveller

Zero 7: Somersault

And for relaxing in the evening:
Labcabincalifornia
People Under The Stairs
Sublime
Jackson Moody Band

... so much more i wanna take with me... i guess i'll update this list as i think of stuff.

ooh - http://trekforce.synfinity.net, please give it a click, its for a really good cause :)

So, after spending a lot of time in the labs working my fingers off coding my 3rd year project I started to get bored of the quality of my iPod 'phones.

They are ok, but they dont deliver the bass as i'd like and to accomplish that bass I have to turn them up really loud. not a great plan.

So I thought, screw it, I have enough money for a treat...

enter Grado Labs.

After much deliberation and recommends from friends (moogman, seymansey) and forums (fizikz and digital vertigo) I decided on some Grado SR-80's. While I would have liked the RS-1's my budget won't stretch that far... not even for mahogany sound chambers.

Anyway, they sound like the proverbial dog's danglies even if they do look like they are bang out of the 1970's :D

Hey, its the sound that counts.

Now all i need to do is get a phono minijack splitter and remove my tweeters from my sub... then the sound will be perfect. Chest thumping subs and all :D

while i'm typing, I'd like to mention Jinrai. These guys had a track on a TUCO untapped album in 2003 that I got free from my uni. Fantastic stuff, completely different to anything. Its great. Violins, Sax, beautiful lyrics... its great.
Im told by a relative of one of the members (joshachristie) that they have stopped. I'm sad to hear this and hope that they carry on someday because this is music from the heart. Keep on going guys; if it's making me happy, its bound to make others the same.

Music does all sorts of things to our brains, and to each it does something different...
I'm trying to gather some tracks that paint incredible soundscapes, and I need some reccomendations...

So far, I've got 3 that I think paint the 'best' soundscapes as far as I am concerned; I mean, they arent nescessarily the best but the structure of the track or ..soemthing about it... sends me somewhere else.

1. Traveller
2. Kirwani
3. Homelands

I think I'm a sucker for the sorta asian-electonic fusion... but here are some others that achieve a similar effect (with some explaination as to what effect I think they have)

1. Little Fluffy Clouds - I guess this needs no explanaition, its a late summer evening with the sun setting... possibly in a mown hay field under a big ol' tree with a rope swing on a hill. but thats just me.
2. More Than This - This puts me on a beach in the night, summer again, clear skies, full moon, light breeze, waves washing...
3. By The Sea - Again, i guess this one's pretty obvious... beachyness in the summertime.

I guess the last 3 are more to do with the meaning behind the words than the track, but theres something about the way the chords are used perhaps? I'm not musically technical so I can't figure it out.

Any suggestions of new tracks that I should hear would be great. Tracks, mind, not artists, cos artists can cover way too much turf- i just want soundscapes :)

Hope you guys can help!

Ok!
Just watched High Fidelity, which was the film that got me into making playlists/mixtapes aaaaaages ago.
When my collection was limited by the fact it was all on CD and i had to make on ACTUAL TAPE :P
Amazing.

Anyway, in honour of said film I'm gonna do some top-fives, and hopefully some other folks will too.

First off (idea of seymansey)

Top Five Tracks that Remind You of Previous Women
Ok, so in my case it might just be _{tracks that remind me of a girl who's somehow special} *COUGH*ANYWAY
(in order of lasting heartache)

1. Heal Over - Dont wanna talk about it.
2. Sean [original] - *sigh* need to sort my frickin' head out.
3. Here In My Room - haha... well. Lust, what can i say.
4. Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth - Girl i fancied BIGTIME, she turned druggie, went weird, this track came out, QUEUE ENDLESS LOOP.
5. By The Sea - Ahhh... this was a track i heard first when it was used as a soundsystem test for this silly young enterprise thing... and it was put on by the most incredible.. well she wasnt.


Voila! Shit list but hey.

and here's seymansey's (in no particular order)
Frances Farmer
Celebrity Skin
Stupid MF
Avon
Through With You


other folks?

OH YEAH!?
Audioscrobbler hackers- Rub it in with the hearts why don't you?!
Damn stupid valentines day
/me sticks on some Dashboard Confessional
:P

Wow
well i think (other than Grooverider in Jersey) that was my first drum'n'bass night with a well known DJ...
Guess who?
Andy C
:D
And OH MY GOD was it a good night.
Me, seymansey, blast_stu, tebbSponger, luxej, Norm, Mark and others (including dangerousbeans somewhere in there!) were all spazzing out non stop for about 3 hours... OW MY MOST OF ME.
Yay for drum and basssssssssssss

*BWWWWOWWWWWOWWWWWOWWWW-off-BWWWWOWWWWWOWWWWWOWWWW*
(ooh and he played Voodoo People (Pendulum remix), Remember The Future and of course Slam :D)
Happy Steve.

Current Favourites - Stuff discovered recently or jsut listened to lots in 2006 so far. A mix of mellow acoustic tracks, slightly more upbeat rootsy ska and hip hop, moving on to some funky stuff, a bit of jazz, cooling down with some trip-hoppy beats.

Willy Mason: Oxygen

Noe Venable: Happiness

Khoiba: That Reason

José González: Heartbeats

Chris Murray: Dinosaurs

Dawn Penn: No, No, No

Sublime & Pharcyde: Summertime

Hilltop Hoods: Tomorrow Will Do

The Pharcyde: Otha Fish In the Sea

Ella Fitzgerald: Fever

Nikka Costa: Everybody Got Their Something

Nikkfurie: The A La Menthe

Sergent Garcia: Hoy Me Voy

RJD2: 1976

Funkstörung: Like A Poet Feat. Enik

ils: Loving You

Wagon Christ: Shadows

Roots Manuva: Motion 5000 (Groove Armada Remix)

Joe Clausell Vs. Nitin Sawhney: Buddha bar chill out in paris

voila. a bit of a random mix but listened to in order i think it flows ok.