• Video editing is fun. Before I had neither the software to do it correctly or the hardware to run said software with usable performance. Now I have a laptop which can run Adobe Premiere(!) and do all kinds of amazing stuff right there in the editor.
• Doing all kinds of fun things in the video editor means you look up and there is daylight coming through the blinds again.
• If you want to remove audio from a stream in Premiere, you need to right-click on it, select “Unlink” and then delete the audio stream the normal way.
• Video encoding continues to be a giant clusterfuck and annoying headache*
• It is a shame that a license for Premiere costs $800 cause this would be an awesome hobby. I guess I need to finish this project in the next 30 days.
• I need a bigger bandwidth pipe at my apartment.

Hopefully I will post the results of tonight’s efforts if it ever finishes uploading.

Foals - Antidotes
It might be a good idea to stop buying CDs based on listening to five second samples on Last.fm. I find it incredible how quickly I discovered, fell in love with and then subsequently got very sick of dance-punk in such a short period of time.

Jaymay - Autumn Fallin’
This one was bought after I read an interview in which Jamie said her literary equivalent was Midori from Norwegian Wood. I am of the opinion that the world needs more people like Midori. Not knowing what to expect when I got the CD itself, I was very surprised when I got it. Her voice is very clear and it just jumps off the track. The music is all right as well, and I especially like the jazz/lounge interlude “Hard To Say”.

Colin Meloy - Colin Meloy Sings Live!
There is a live Colin Meloy show which is virtually the same as this album and available to stream on the NPR All Songs Considered site, so if you want to save $10 go ahead and listen to that. You will not get the aborted song “Dracula’s Daughter” and a mixed bag of banter but nothing tastes quite like value. That said, the music here (that song excepted) is really great and the solo acoustic guitar really brings out the melodies in the songs. The banter is okay, though I feel as if Meloy is trying too hard to get the crowd to break out of their shells and play along. My favorite moment is when the crowd picks up the last refrain in “The Engine Driver,” I was truly surprised when I first heard it and it felt more genuine than any other point on the album. Also the version of “California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade” is probably the best I have heard.

Heroes Original Soundtrack
Reading the liner notes for this album makes it sound much less like a real soundtrack and more of a compilation of songs the people who work on Heroes really like. This is fine, I like a lot of the songs, though overall the album feels like there is no cohesion to it at all. And the Bowie inclusion is both cheesy and left a bad taste in my mouth when the album was over.

The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
After a few listens I am not sure what to think of this album as a whole. Some songs really grab me and get stuck in my head, others just go by as the washed out fuzzy blur that they are. Another review suggested this was an album to be played loud so I tried that, and it does help but not to a great degree.

The Emeralds - Love is Rolling
These guys certainly put on the liveliest of the sets at Japan Nite, and that is clearly reflected in the album. While watching their set, they reached the point where I wanted them to stop talking to the audience and just play another fucking song. That is not an issue here, though something is lost between the live set and the recorded material.

The Beaches - The Beaches
The Beaches - HANA HOU
My thoughts when they came on last were, “Oh they are sort of reggae or dance hall… oh god my feet hurt, I want to go to sleep already.” I was sure that I would have enjoyed them had they not been at the end of a four hour show and sure enough, their albums are both catchy and a fun listen.

Detroit7 - Special Sampler For Japan Nite
Detroit7 - Third Star From The Sun
Maybe it was due to my spending most of their set trying not to get pulled into a mosh pit, but I did not realize the singer’s voice was so deep! I mean, I recognized she did not have a high-pitched female idol pop voice, especially given that they performed after Ketchup Mania who had a singer just like that, but this is beyond belief. Otherwise only a few songs really caught my interest and overall I felt their songs worked better live.

Scandal - Space Ranger (single)
A fairly catchy song, the arrangement seems a lot more complex than I remember when they were playing.

Pizzicato Five R.I.P. Edition

When I realized that both members of Pizzicato Five probably had solo projects since their breakup, I ordered both of these CDs right away.

Nomiya Maki - Party People
Nomoto Karia - Dance Music
It is curious that I find both of these albums to be very similar to one another. I guess between the two we can get an idea of where Pizzicato Five would have gone had they not broken up. It might not be fair to compare, although the arrangement on “Big Bang Romance” (from Party People) sounds exactly like it could have been on a P5 album, and Karia does an outright P5 cover (of “東京は夜の七時/The Night Is Still Young”) on her album so the legacy is definitely there. The cover is actually a pretty good point of reference to compare the two, and I found some distinct differences between Maki and Karia’s singing. Maki comes off as more talented and confident, while Karia has an almost childish side to her singing in comparison. Anyway, overall Party People is fairly weak even with Maki’s vocals, and the production on Dance Music wins out overall.

Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
At first I was not sure what to make of this album, it sounds only vaguely in passing like St. Elsewhere and I had no idea what I was supposed to be listening for. On the second listen I noticed I was enjoying it a lot more and now a week later I am totally into it. The hit to miss ratio is about the same for me as St. Elsewhere, though I cannot help but feel like these songs are more interesting overall.

The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
This album knocked me on my ass when I first heard it. Try as I might, I did not like the Raconteurs first album beyond that first single. It was too mellow for me and it all blended together until the album had ended half an hour prior and I had not even realized the music stopped. On the other hand, this new album grabbed me by the throat from the first song and did not let go until the last track, which is probably my favorite. I have heard the album described as more of a “Jack White solo project” than their last, which I guess is what I was looking for all along.

Feist - The Reminder
Feist is yet another artist who everyone and their mother was talking about at some point who, after listening to Let It Die a few times, I just did not like. I was fully expecting to complete ignore this new album (and apparently there was an iPod commercial? I had no idea) until Elaine mentioned it. So here we are. I really like the up-tempo tracks (”I Feel It All”, “Sea Lion Woman”) and overall I was greatly surprised.

She and Him - Volume One
I have no idea who Zooey Deschanel is and looking at her IMDB profile is not helping. At times this record fits into the “a little too country for me” category. Still at some point, I think during “I Was Made For You” I thought to myself, “wow people do not write songs like this any more” and tried to listen more intently afterward. Overall I am very impressed, especially if this is her debut album, and am eagerly awaiting Volume Two.

Sons and Daughters - This Gift
My god do I love this album. It has been stuck in my head for two weeks now, the choruses of “Chains” and “This Gift” and “House in My Head”. I originally listened to The Repulsion Box on Yahoo! Music after the service suggested it for me, but I do not remember getting this hooked on that album. It reminds me of Camera Obscura’s last album if only because that was another that I had a similar reaction to. Adele’s vocals reminds me of Wendy Ip (or is that the other way around?) which is also nice.

noodles - METROPOLIS
When I saw noodles open for The Pillows early last month I enjoyed their set. Part of me was wondering at the time if this was due to my liking the idea of a three-person girl rock band as much if not more than just their music alone. That was until they played their last song, “Ingrid Said” which totally blew me away, and I was at their merch table buying this CD as soon as they were done. Overall I enjoy the album a lot and I am sure I would enjoy them more live now that I am familiar with their music, but nothing compares to “Ingrid Said”, it is completely at another level from the rest of the album. And I guess that is not a bad thing to me.

I cannot tell if I have joined an elite club of people with broken Xboxes, or have been expelled from an elite club of people who have not had their Xbox crap out on them yet.