There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!

Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by M.D. Herter Norton) via The Snake The Cross The Crown’s blog.

The band posted this quote, assumedly, as an indirect way of telling their fans (myself included) that they’re working on new material and to be patient.

Yet another one for the being great takes a while conversation.

Side note: Why do I get stuck on one idea and keep going back to it? It keeps happening.

It’s a sad realization when I get on here and see that my last post was a monthly playlist. Maybe one of my goals for next year should be to write more often. It’s not so much a lack of content as it is a lack of time. So maybe my other goal should be to not have so many goals.

Adam Pasion’s new album is worth checking out and listening to ten times. Do it. And Matthew Robert Cooper is a “side project” for one-man band Eluvium who you already know I love. Check him out too. And all the rest of the songs, of course.

Also, if you can get your hands on Aphex Twin’s bootleg from Coachella 2008, listen to that ten times too.

1. Adam Pasion – “Run By Faith” (O Hear the Rattling)
2. Joshua James – “Dangerous” (The Sun is Always Brighter)
3. Adam Pasion – “Awake” (O Hear the Rattling)
4. Calexico – “Crumble” (Feast of Wire)
5. Danielson – “Don’t You Be the Judge (live version)” (Trying Hartz)
6. DJ Rupture – “Mass Dampers: Ekstrak” (Uproot)
7. Tobacco – “Dirt (feat. Aesop Rock)” (Fucked Up Friends)
8. Kings Of Leon – “Use Somebody” (Only by The Night)
9. Joshua James – “Lovers Without Love” (The Sun is Always Brighter)
10. Sufjan Stevens – “Oh God Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)” (Michigan)
11. Sufjan Stevens – “Redford (for Yia-Yia and Pappou)” (Michigan)
12. Matthew Robert Cooper – “Miniature 7″ (Miniatures)
13. Matthew Robert Cooper – “Miniature 9″ (Miniatures)
14. M83 – “Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun” (Before the Dawn Heals Us)
15. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Electronic Dream Plant” (Cotton Teeth)
16. Aphex Twin – “Nannou 2″ (Drukqs)
17. Port O’Brien – “I Woke Up Today” (All We Could Do Was Sing)

June was an interesting month. Friends graduating college and moving away, a road trip to Colorado, Adele exploding on the scene and doing anything I could to take a chill pill due to a lot of stress. Little did I know what July would bring… dun dun DUNNNNN!

1. Black Sabbath – “Black Sabbath” (Black Sabbath)
2. Devin the Dude – “She Want That Money” (Waitin’ to Inhale)
3. Jakob – “Everything All of the Time” (Solace)
4. Adele – “Crazy For You” (19)
5. N.E.R.D. – “Spaz” (Seeing Sounds)
6. Coldplay – “Violet Hill” (Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends)
7. Sigur Rós – “Gobbledigook” (Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust)
8. Of Montreal – “Gronlandic Edit” (Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?)
9. Bob Marley – “No Woman No Cry (Live)” (Legend)
10. The Wombats – “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” (Let’s Dance to Joy Division)
11. Adele – “Daydreamer” (19)
12. Bob Marley – “Stir It Up” (Legend)
13. Dub Trio – “Awakening Dub (Live)” (Exploring the Dangers of)
14. The Snake the Cross the Crown – “Electronic Dream Plant” (Cotton Teeth)
15. Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds – “Bartender” (Live at Radio City)
16. The Mountain Goats – “Love Love Love” (The Sunset Tree)

This one is late for good reason. I’ve been sick all week and am just now beginning to see the end. Not only have I been busy resting, watching the entire Freaks & Geeks series, as well as several episodes of Six Feet Under, but the doc I went to looked at my ear, which is highly prone to infection after colds, and said I had a major tear halfway across my ear drum. Closer inspection indicated that wasn’t the case (whew) but neither of the doctors could figure out what was going on. “Cool ear,” one of them told me on his way out. Uhh… thanks?

Anyway, on to the music (which will be slightly garbled to me until I finish this course of double-strength antibiotics). Last month I finally started catching on to This Will Destroy You’s new one, I continued to fall in love with The Snake The Cross The Crown, I saw Ryan Adams live for the first time (yay, bootlegs!) and discovered Modeselektor thanks to Radiohead guest-DJing some BBC radio show I’d never heard of. Enjoy some tunes.

1. This Will Destroy You – “They Move On Tracks of Never-Ending Light” (This Will Destroy You)
2. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Gypsy Melodies” (Cotton Teeth)
3. M.I.A. – “Hussel” (Kala)
4. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Maps” (Cotton Teeth)
5. Michael Cera & Ellen Page – “Anyone Else But You” (Juno soundtrack)
6. Sigur Rós – “Hafsól” (Hvarf/Heim)
7. The Magnetic Fields – “California Girls” (Distortion)
8. M.I.A. – “20 Dollar” (Kala)
9. Circa Survive – “In The Morning And Amazing…” (On Letting Go)
10. Ryan Adams – “Shakedown On 9th Street” (Heartbreaker)
11. Collections Of Colonies Of Bees – “Flocks III” (Collections Of Colonies Of Bees)
12. Modeselektor – “The Dark Side Of The Sun (feat. Puppetmastaz)” (Happy Birthday!)
13. Modeselektor – “The White Flash (feat. Thom Yorke)” (Happy Birthday!)
14. Burial – “Prayer” (Burial)
15. Vampire Weekend – “Walcott” (Vampire Weekend)
16. Vampire Weekend – “Oxford Comma” (Vampire Weekend)

I’m only a few days late. This was a month of making the best Christmas mix CD ever (exclusively in the hands of my closest friends), listening to countless best-of-2007 lists (hence the recurrence of M.I.A. and The Snake The Cross The Crown), a new This Will Destroy You record (not as good as Young Mountain, but still not a waste of money if you make it to the last few songs), discovering only a few years too late how great I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning is and realizing that Sam Beam has probably been listening to dub music.

Coming up: my personal goals for 2008, which explains how this here blog will finally be put to greater use than monthly playlists and the occasional rant.

1. The Knife – “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” (Silent Shout)
2. Daft Punk – “Robot Rock / Oh Yeah” (Alive 2007)
3. Holy Fuck – “Echo Sam” (LP)
4. Thom Yorke – “Harrowdown Hill” (The Eraser)
5. Sufjan Stevens – “O Come O Come Emmanuel” (Songs For Christmas)
6. Vince Guaraldi – “Christmastime Is Here (Vocal)” (A Charlie Brown Christmas)
7. Rihanna – “Umbrella” (Good Girl Gone Bad)
8. A Fine Frenzy – “Fever” (Dan In Real Life Soundtrack)
9. Bright Eyes – “Poison Oak” (I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning)
10. Bright Eyes – “Road To Joy” (I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning)
11. This Will Destroy You – “The Mighty Rio Grande” (This Will Destroy You)
12. Mindy Smith – “Santa Will Find You” (My Holiday)
13. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Cakewalk” (Cotton Teeth)
14. M.I.A. – “Mango Pickle Down River” (Kala)
15. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Electronic Dream Plant” (Cotton Teeth)
16. M.I.A. – “Paper Planes” (Kala)
17. Iron & Wine – “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” (The Shepherd’s Dog)
18. This Will Destroy You – “They Move On Tracks Of Never-Ending Light” (This Will Destroy You)

I’ve been lazy with the blogging as of late. It’s more fulfilling to post stuff like that on Buzzgrinder because people actually comment on it. So I’ll just link you to my top 10 list there and give you (who is “you” anyway?) 11 through 20 with no descriptions:

20. Panda Bear – Person Pitch
19. Eluvium – Copia
18. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Ire Works
17. Bright Eyes – Cassadaga
16. The Snake The Cross The Crown – Cotton Teeth
15. Band Of Horses – Cease To Begin
14. M.I.A. – Kala
13. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog
12. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
11. Daft Punk – Alive 2007