Re-evaluate.

On a ripping tear, getting work done too but a lot of time has been spent putting stuff through the 320kbps threshing machine and then out the door for meager, yet satisfying, wages. Meager in part because if I were getting rid of all the really good CDs I'd be making more money--a lot of nobodies and compilations all this shoveling through, some of it stuff that frankly nobody wants--including me, obviously, but at least I'm interested in an MP3 souvenir. What I've especially noticed, though, is that I've been holding onto a handful of discs--next to me is a "re-evaluate" pile that's become as important as the "sell," "rip then sell," "keep," and "unsaleable, deal with later" ones.

A lot of it is very heavily associated with The Wire magazine. I began today by playing all three discs of Stereolab's Oscillations From the Anti-Sun, a three-disc comp featuring some of the dullest sequencing I've ever sat through. It really buried their strengths; I've been wanting to start listening to their catalog in order, maybe even try some of the other comps, though the ever-enlarging number of them--I don't mean any Switched On--is making the smell slightly like the Who. It really was triggered by Geeta Dayal throwing me a YouTube URL that I've looked at/listened to a lot, of the groop playing on Jools Holland in 1996. It made me nostalgic for that time, when I was discovering those kinds of not-rock-historical things at the same time as a lot of others. Oscillations isn't a good place to start, really, and I was ready to let it go altogether when the very last song on disc three came up: "Soop Groove #1," from 1996, off the "Fluorescences" EP, 13 minutes of nonstop ectoplasm-funk that I could listen to for days. Decision made: the CD goes with me to Havana for the next few weeks.

I followed that up with King Tubby . . . At the Controls, Trojan, 1999, all Aggrovators stuff, if that makes any difference to you. It doesn't, really, to me, no matter how many reggae and dub reissues I bought or how many times I read The Rough Guide to Reggae beginning to end. At the Controls sounds terrific and I'm certainly going to keep it--the idea is to keep albums I like, will want to play, etc.--but it's not only good to hear in itself (as well as in-itself evoking my early 20s, a time I increasingly treasure), it's kind of freeing: I don't feel so boxed in by the self-made need to understand all this stuff on its own terms, and I can just listen to it again.

I'm three-quarters through disc one of Archives GRM, a five-CD box of French lab-coat electronic music studies, and it's a similar feeling: how many times have I passed this up because it was somehow forbidding, or because listening to albums beginning to end means you have to put a day aside for box sets and the like? I figured I'd just rip it all and leave it for another day. But as each disc went in, I grew curious--did I really want to give this up? Didn't you really like this kind of thing once, or at least convince yourself you did? And the truth is, I did. It's easy to forget that sometimes. I've tried a lot of things over the past decade, but when I got into experimental stuff it was partly because it seemed like a good area to write about: I was, as noted, a Wire reader and wanted to keep up with the mag, and also because there was stuff happening locally in Minneapolis and I could get paid to write about it. I moved away from that sort of thing over time, but hearing it again a lot of it sounds rather wonderful. Someday I'll even read the booklet.

Other stuff I'm keeping to re-evaluate: King Sunny Ade's Classics Volume 3 (I have I think the first half-dozen; no reason not to dive back in, especially with the weather nice again, finally); Burning Spear, Creation Rebel; One Day on Radio Mali; Bollywood Steel Guitar (replayed it already; probably the most enjoyable, approachable Sublime Frequencies title); DJ Language's Real Music for Real People (Jess Harvell reviewed it that year positively but put a different, promo-only Language mix in his Top 10 that year; all this time I've been hanging on to the wrong CD, though having listened to it now it's still pretty good); Various Artists, Decay Product (amazingly, the CD is not cracked).

I'm not even close to finished.

And yet the gradual haul-out of the never-weres or never-quites is really making a difference psychically. Just looking at a couple of small shelves is amazing compared to how it used to be. It's all just stuff I like! I can't remember the last time I looked at a shelf full of CDs and felt that way. I don't even feel this way about the Q1 Top 40 I posted on my other blog a while ago--those are good songs but almost none of them have earned any sentimental value, which is crucial. I am excited to see how it is when it's done--or as done as it can be with an ongoing inflow of stuff, however small.

The thing I think I feared most about pruning my collection like this is that it wouldn't seem representative enough. For a long time that would have meant "not enough genres" and to some degree it still does, because I have at least a surface attraction to a lot of genres. Now it also means representative of my tastes, at least as I can gauge them. But a weird thing has happened: this year my favorite genre, by far, has been indie rock. I don't doubt for a second that I'm playing safe; I've felt less inclined to venture afar musically this year than I think I ever have. I'm 34, which is certainly part of it. I've got a lot of other things to worry about, some of them I'm facing up to for the first time in years (mostly financial, great timing), and I'm a wonderful trifle like brakesbrakesbrakes' cover of "Ancient Mysteries" would have been lucky to make a first-quarter Top 30 and be fondly picked up every so often. But all of a sudden I really want to hear a lot of fast four beats and quarter-note bass. I want whiny intonation. I crave dissonant guitars and lyrics that alternate between wide-eyed and jaded. I find myself caring about bands my peers are actually interested in.

I don't think I've burned out on techno. I play a lot of it, like a bunch of records. I've already written too much about DJ Koze this year. (BUT HE'S SO FUCKING GOOD!) I'm getting ready to write about Kiki--like that one a bunch. Etc. But toward the end of '06 and then in '07 and '08 I'd fallen back in love with techno so much that I felt vaguely guilty when I kept reading what a lull it was in. Maybe it was--I never go out anymore, so whatever discourse surrounding it as it exists in clubs is pretty much beyond me. I just go by records, and I heard lots both years I liked. It's not always a comfortable position; I'm kind of amazed I get to write for RA, where I'm outmatched on every side in terms of on-scene knowledge. It's humbling to do sometimes--I work hard on it because I know it has to stand up to real scrutiny. I try to do that with everything, but RA is a special case.

But yes, indie rock. I like it. I made Angela a ziptape last night; while I knew I'd fill it up with indie because she loves the stuff, I was also primarily being honest about my own proclivities over the past few months of listening. Or really, the last month, because the first quarter felt pretty dire to me. (Obviously my listening was less rangy than usual, so take that with lots of salt, please.) But now it feels like that fallow beginning is being made up for.