Ambienttraffic

Looking back on the past year, there are a couple of bands and albums that stood out as my soundtrack for 2009 - they were on heavy rotation on my iPod and I couldn't get them out of my head. In no particular order:

• Quantic and his Combo Barbaro: totally great mixture of Latin, African and Middle Eastern sounds. I wish I could be driving in a convertible down the beach on a summer evening with this on my stereo.
  
• Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska: I know this album is more than 20 years old, but I recently downloaded it and made me realize that I don't hate Bruce. In fact, this album is totally stark and moving and unlike anything that I had associated Bruce with. Thanks eMusic.
  
• Under the Covers: A two disc covers album with Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, lead singer of the Bangles. Some of the covers are pretty straightforward, but I love Susanna Hoffs' voice and I can't get enough of it.
  
• Metric: This was Metric's year. "Help I'm Alive" was an earworm for me for almost a month straight. I blame it on @djacobs.
  
• Cut Copy: Poppy electro disco perfection.
  
• The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: I think this was in every hipster's playlist at some point this year. But there's a reason why! Twee, endearing vocals, with a sugary pop coating.
  
• Darker Than Blue: Soul From Jamdown 1973-1980: I was never a huge reggae fan but this album has made me change my mind - the music on here is deep, powerful and yes, dark.
  
• Neko Case: Because she's brilliant and I always need my dose of countrified alt rock.
• Thao: This album recently made it into heavy rotation - I constantly download female singer/songwriter type music with high expectations but often they blur together. Thao has a really unique sound that just grabs your heart and makes her stand out from the rest.
  

I think that Lady Gaga also deserves a mention even though I have been resisting her for months - Bad Romance has been stuck in my head for days now. Damn her wily charms!

The older I get, the more nostalgic I become for the holiday season. There's something different about this time of year, when you think more about family, reflect on the past seasons, and enjoy the last fading colors of autumn (at least in New York). I have a love/hate relationship with the retailers, they definitely bring out the Christmas stuff too early these days but it puts me in the mood for hot cocoa, curling up on the couch and making tree ornaments.

So in celebration I've dug up some old family photos that I'm going to post over the next few days over in Seen - not necessarily of the holidays, but pictures that bring up that sense of reflection and remembrance that is so prevalent during this time.

So, what, it's been a year since I promised an overhaul of my site? It's finally here! I got a kick in the pants to finish up my templates and launch the site because the inaction was preventing me from producing any content. Part of what I had to overcome was seeing this site as a finished product and rather as a work in progress - so please excuse the funny looking search pages. I'm really happy about finally putting this up, dusting off the corners, and adding a whole bunch of new ways for me to consolidate my thoughts.

I approached the redesign from analyzing how I create content; I've never been a regular blog writer in the sense that I was dedicated enough to write every day. I tend to write epic blog posts every once in a while, but I had to admit that it wasn't something that I always enjoyed doing and that I had to feel "inspired" to reach the point of enjoying it - but not that I wanted to cut that out entirely. So those epic blog posts are still around under "Written", and may even have not-so-epic blog posts/rants in the future. But I knew that I had to figure out the other ways that I create content beyond what I consider straight "blog writing".