last note falls off your skin

I woke up this mornin' with the sundown shinin' in
I found my mind in a brown paper bag within
I tripped on a cloud and fell-a eight miles high
I tore my mind on a jagged sky
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in

Drumroll....barambarambarap!
As promised, I deliver to your naked eyes:

Top 10 Kowalski-Approved* Albums of Two Thousand and Show-Stoppin' Seven

10. Pocket Symphony - Wow! Ok I completely forgot about this gem that showed up earlier in the year. This one nudged out Burial's Untrue and Seawolf; quite the one-two punch..eh? From the starting notes this one's a classic. God and my neighbours back in rez know how many times I fell asleep on my desk listening to this one.. while pushing papers n digits (well I don't work with digits coz I'm a life sci man..but whatevs you know the deal). I bow my head to the french duo who create such ...wait is that a japanese shamisen (instrument) they just used!

9. 23 - Blonde Redhead bought my soul and a pack of crisps to go along with it when I first heard Kazu Makino's crooning yet eerie voice atop of a mountain of soaring guitars and clockwork beats. Ace, ace, ace..exist, sweet and sugary existence. (something about impure hair just drives me nuts! - in a completely sexual and wholesome good way)

8. Year Zero - Ok so I've been a nine inch nails fan for a while now, but with teeth was predominantly a let down. According to my bro Trent had become too infatuated with his own voice. On this album the music takes over in some sorts.. and it is grand takeover indeed. It's like the Bastille is coming down again! If that wasn't good enough there is a yearzeroremixed as well.. top notch.

7. Tio Bitar - Love the Swedes! Go ahead love them. They're good.. this album is psychedlic heaven. I dug Dungen's digs when I first heard ta det lungt and when the new album came up I was there to catch it. This is such an acid trip of an album...ah ace! Så Blev Det Bestämt - swedish for "so it was settled" is such a nugget, dear lord I remember crouching in corner of my room, and then reeling on the floor when I heard the madness on this track.

6. The Shepard's Dog - Oh Sam Beam! If Jesus was ever to grow his hair out and sport a nice ol' beard ...wait he did: he would pick up a guitar and stum out "boy with a coin" or "white tooth man". This album is better than bavarian fruit beard with extra icing sugar on top! oh dear...

5. Voxtrot - Ever felt like kickin around in your room and ripping down post'its one second and then settling down thinking of a girl you want to crane your neck and kiss on the lips, the other? Voxtrot is like that chick you love in highschool but can never get your grimy hands on...!Yes voxtrot finally released their eponymous debut...and yes they ditched out on me when I stood outside the modclub trying to see them... You left me in the cloud/cold you bastards!!! But you still love 'em all the same.

4. Fancy Footwork - Kick out the jams - this is one for the times when you feel like you're dressed divine and you're out to tear the dancefloor down with your teeth. KICK OFF YOUR SUNDAYS SHOES.....UH HUH FOOTLOOOOOSE! Each song on this album took turns being my fave song of the week. Chromeo never let me down. Praise the lord!

3. Myths of the Near Future - I forgot this one was released in the glorious month of January 07. Rocked out to it in Montreal, in Toronto, Saigon and the effin' Brixton Academy. Well the latter two are untrue...but god is this music heavenly. David Bowie would put the Klaxons aka the fourse horsemen of 2012 on his top shelf..if he could reach it on his high heels.

2. The Boxer - The National are my saviours. 2007 came and went, but all I'll hear will be the drums on Squalor Victoria...
Underline everything, I’m a professional in my beloved white shirt
I'm going down among the saints
Raise our heavenly glasses to the heavens! Squalor Victoria! Squalor Victoria!

1. In Rainbows - Take a bow lads... I've been saving this one: Top Drawer!
Moments I'm proud of, looking back at this year with my retrospective specs' on:
Sitting on the couch with my roommate, sipping on earl grey tea, listening to reckoner! Radiohead will slip into the vacumm left by the corporations once their demise comes to fruition.

No matter what happens now
I won't be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day
I've ever seen.

"Get A Shot of the Refrigerator"

He arrives through the doorway... with a knapsack over one shoulder and an "enviro-shopping bag" in the other. Apparently he's trying to reduce his ecological footprint? Trudges up the stairs, to the third floor. Kickin' off his boots he comes into the living room, positively glowing. It's been god-knows-how-long since his refrigerator held any food.

pause
...kettle is whistling in the background over the sweet kraut-inspired motorik beats of stereolab's acclaimed fab four suture; are they singing in french? ah he loves it

comes back now to his computer, tea mug in hand. Freshly brewed from the new batch of Earl Grey he has just brought back from his grocery shopping venture.

ah yet another pause!
..this time its his toast

ok no more intermissions, he decides. Sits down at his spot on the couch. The living room is flowing with euphonious melodies. Now the walls reverberate.. and a voice sings of john wayne gacy. jr's mom folding her son's clothes. Oh Sufjan!
The holidays are in their infancy and two or so weeks, stretch far ahead of him.
Okay I'm going to let go of the third person voice! I revisited an old picture american beauty with my room mate yesterday. I have decided to go through my collection of foreign movies over the break so I can cement my position as an ostentatious self-proclaimed elitist, but with a little more conviction than I possess at the moment.
Look out for an end of the year Top 10 albums in the future on this blog...hopefully before the year expires. Maybe I'll go over the list with my compadre from the suburbs, if he decides to come down from his lofty ivory towers.

Over and Out

Pirate Radio Transmissions

...waiting for the endorphins to kick in
radio crackles with some distant voice telling me that 10 more vietcong soldiers are dead
jean seberg makes a comment, something about how we are so desensitized....rubbish
if i had any more nerve endings, i would crash into a pile of smoldering embers...rubbish

"weird soul music, hypersoul, lovingly processing spectral female voices into vaporised, smudged 2step garage. Voices are blurred, smeared, pitched up, pitched down and pitch bent until their content becomes irrelevant and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void."

"I like putting uplifting elements in something that’s moody as fuck. Make them appear for a moment, and then take them away. That’s the sound I love…like embers in the tune…little glowing bits of vocals…they appear for a second, then fade away and you’re left with an empty, sort of air-duct sound…something that’s eerie and empty. Like you’re waiting just inside a newsagent in the rain…a little sanctuary, then you walk out in it. I love that."

i lick my lips with satisfaction
here is something to compare with in rainbows:
burial - untrue

Tendercrisp Death

Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside...
so declares the wrapping on the outside of a healthy burger I purchase at the ubiquitous BK

had work today,
woke up at 6:30
my bed warm with another
stepped out
stepped into snow
trudged forward
thought of norwegian death metal
"immortal"
barbaric face paint
,get to work
now my ears thaw
boots glisten
now hunger pangs...

...and thats how the proverbial cookie crumbles; you end up in burger king looking confounded. Why on earth am I contemplating dietary death? You grap the tendercrisp chicken burger and chump chump,bite away. Exceptionally salty fries...even for the persian that I am this is too much! What's this now?? You bite your tongue? It's bleeding... but apathy has long since taken over the golden reins

heavy rotation:
daft punk - alive
electric wizard - witchcult today (look up bongzilla meets sludge doom metal)