http://colleenplays.org/my-favorite-things/favourite-music-2...

Rediscovered this list over our morning coffee today. Girlfriend introduced me to Colleen's music years back and we went to go see her at The Wire's Adventures in Modern Music, Chicago 2006. Here's a clip someone recorded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGAmD4rHU64. One of the greatest live performers I've ever seen, and it's just she and her cello, a sampler, some bells, windchimes like you'd hang from your porch. It's super intense and just beautiful music.

Colleen's first record, "Everyone Alive Wants Answers", was put together mainly using samples from her record collection. As the contents found at the link above attest, her record collection is just as impressive and far-reaching as her music. She'd apparently struggled quite a bit putting that list together and with good reason, as it's chock full of the building blocks of the most daring and adventurous of modern music. Currently building a playlist full of this stuff - as ever - on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/user/hissnlissn/playlist/6LPFP7YsQ9V...

On an entirely different note, picked up a copy of Pink Floyd's "Obscured by Clouds" at a record shop somewhere in the past two months and it was the first piece of wax to grace the airspace of my re-assembled studio, in the new house. Hearing this now (in order to post a link) on laptop speakers feels like, I don't know, eating a fine aged cheese through a straw. It kind of has to be played through the kind of speakers you'd find in your dad's basement in the 70's, which is exactly what I've got in the studio. Full album on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15upBREmvgI

I've also been teaching myself a bunch of songs on the bass and the latest was "Kawanga" by Los Straitjackets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IScIQsfO9tA