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Music: Current count 27198 [27183] rated (+15), 390 [381] unrated (+9).
Low rated count. Best explanation I can offer is that I took big chunks from a couple days to work on a drainage project in the back yard, and also spent a day cooking for friends (Mexican recipes for ceviche and corn-on-the-cobb rolled in cotija, Cuban recipes for red beans & rice and a chicken fricasee, fried plantains, and key lime pie). But also many of the records below took a lot of time: the three Springsteen titles (leftover from last week) total seven discs, and at least five of the others got three or more plays (up to six). Actually, when I went to close the week out last night, I only had 14 new rated records -- added Danny Brown and John Lindberg today (two of those multiplay albums).
Or maybe I've just been bummed. Seems like everything is getting hard these days. Aside from the physical wear and tear, I had to deal with a server outage last week -- one of those things that periodically make me wonder whether it's worth the trouble to pay for the damn thing. Even more tedious, I've been collecting reviews from Recycled Goods for possible use in my book-in-progress,Recorded Jazz in the 21st Century: A Consumer Guide. Took me a couple seconds to concatenate 115 columns (427k words) and about three weeks to scroll through them and pick out the jazz reviews. I added the post-2000 records to a working file which currently has about 5000 reviews to add to the 21st century book. Still have Jazz Prospecting (110k words) and Rhapsody Streamnotes (641k words) to go, and I might as well do that before I start integrating all that material into the book.
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to open a second book file,Recorded Jazz in the 20th Century: A (Haphazard and Woefully Incomplete) Consumer Guide, and stuffed most of my Recycled Goods pre-2000 jazz reviews into it (currently 136 pages). You can look at a PDFhere. I haven't set up a download page for it. It's not even a real project at this point, just a repository.
I will say, though, that by the time I got through the Recycled Goods columns, I was wishing I had set up a similar file for other things, especially African music. Thedatabase shows I have 703 rated African (and Middle Eastern, mostly from North Africa) albums. That's a fair start toward a record guide, but barely. I figure Robert Christgau would be in a better position to do a Consumer Guide to African Music: hisAfrican Set List adds up to 613 albums, but it looks like I haven't updated the list links since sometime in 2003 (max artist id = 5394 (of 7331), max album id = 11171 (of 16849). A quick search for albums with higher artist ids or VA albums with higher album ids generated a list of 2185 albums, but the actual number that should be added to the set list is probably less than 200. (If anyone wants to sort them out, please let me know.)
Christgau's review of Drive-By Truckers is here. He also flagged the Handome Family's Unseen as a HM. For what little it's worth, I had Unseen as an A- last week.
New records rated this week:
- Beekman: Vol. 02 (2015 [2016], Ropeadope): [cd]: B+(***)
- Danny Brown: Atrocity Exhibition (2016, Warp): [r]: A-<./li>
- Dogbrain: Blue Dog (2016, Dogbrain Music, EP): [r]: B+(***)
- Drive-By Truckers: American Band (2016, ATO): [r]: A-
- Earprint: Earprint (2016, Endectomorph Music): [cd]: B+(**)
- Five in Orbit: Tribulus Terrestris (2015 [2016], Fresh Sound New Talent): [r]: B+(**)
- Mary Halvorson Octet: Away With You (2015 [2016], Firehouse 12): [cd]: B+(***)
- John Lindberg BC3: Born in an Urban Ruin (2016, Clean Feed): [cd]: B+(**)
- Minim Experiment: Dark Matter (2016, ForTune): [bc]: B+(**)
- Moonbow: When the Sleeping Fish Turn Red and the Skies Start to Sing in C Major I Will Follow You to the End (2016, ILK): [cd]: B+(**)
- Parker Abbott Trio: Elevation (2016, self-released): [cd]: B
- John Scofield: Country for Old Men (2016, Impulse!): [r]: B+(*)
- Silva/Rasmussen/Solberg: Free Electric Band (2014 [2016], ForTune): [bc]: B+(*)
Old music rated this week:
- Bruce Springsteen: The Promise (1977-78 [2010], Columbia, 2CD): [r]: B+(*)
- Bruce Springsteen: Tracks (1972-95 [1998], Columbia, 4CD): [r]: B+(**)
- Bruce Springsteen: 18 Tracks (1972-99 [1999], Columbia): [r]: B+(**)
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
- Stefan Aeby Trio: To the Light (Intakt)
- Black Bombaim & Peter Brötzmann (Clean Feed)
- Christiane Bopp/Jean-Luc Petit: L'Écorce et la Salive (Fou)
- John Butcher & Ståle Liavik Solberg: So Beautiful, It Starts to Rain (Clean Feed)
- Jonathan Finlayson & Sicilian Defense: Moving Still (Pi): October 15
- Friends & Neighbors: What's Wrong? (Clean Feed)
- Luke Hendon: Silk & Steel (self-released)
- John Lindberg Raptor Trio: Western Edges (Clean Feed)
- Jacam Manricks: Chamber Jazz (self-released): October 28
- Delfeayo Marsalis presents the Uptown Jazz Orchestra: Make America Great Again! (Troubadour Jass)
- Jørgen Mathisen/Christian Meaas Svendsen/Andreas Wildhagen: Momentum (Clean Feed)
- Mark Murphy: Slip Away (Mini Movie): October 25
- Schlippenbach Trio: Warsaw Concert (Intakt)
- Soul Basement feat. Jay Nemor: What We Leave Behind (ITI)