The shuddering low-string metal noises in Sleater-Kinney's "Start Together" always sound like the most immense thing in the world to me.

The intimacy afforded by the new Beta Band record on headphones is even more noticeable when there are more people around. Every little sound seems to reinforce that intimacy (isolation, perhaps?) because of the level of familiarity required to catch it all.

Classes started today. Over lunch I read my students' logic textbook and stared out my seventh floor office window at downtown Minneapolis in the distance - Fela Kuti on the headphones. He's not as much like James Brown as I was led to believe. At least not the James Brown I was thinking of. But he does have horns. They're miked in that funny 70s style that the ones on my Al Green best of are, too. (Also accidentally found horns recently by putting on James Brown, Live at the Apollo. Lemme hear ya say owwww.)

"my shit's more deep than any tape from Enigma"

Lots of information about liturgical worship and music in the Judeo-Christian tradition (with stuff about lots of Orthodox offshoots).

Allergies bad. Sneezing, nose thing, itchy eyes. Deadened responses to music, everything else. Training meetings today. Schmoozing too. Ugh. Classes start Tuesday. Will likely be deadened to those too - but probably writing more.

I'd like to hear The Biz with a lazy horn section.

Listened to Kid A on my headphones last night, on the stereo, which makes it less bassy than my discman. Sound seemed disturbingly separated into "main instruments" and "floaty stuff higher up in the headphones" levels - division wasn't always kept, but it felt pretty rigid to me and so made the produciton seem a lot less enveloping. Needs room-space to smear those little details out more.

This made it all a lot less involving.

Monk at the Jazz Workshop seems a lot lighter than the other Columbia era stuff I've heard. Monk's playing is more nimble. It highlights a similar kind of lightness that's in a lot of his other recordings - often his playing sounds a lot more gentle than you would expect from the way the music sounds, melodically, harmonically, rhythmically. In some places where it seems like huge crashing haphazardly swung chords would suit the music "best", Monk's a lot more subtle. Part of what makes him "difficult" maybe?

The sound on the Jazz Workshop album aids this: everything is more trebly from the live recording, the piano especially - and it's all kind of distant, while still being well-defined.

The band as a whole sounds a lot looser, as well; compare to the It Club stuff where they just seem kind of in-between somewhere (not quite sure), and Straight, No Chaser where they're much more dug in. Here the drum kit sounds more pliable, limber. The others follow suit.

The scene: Murph and Josh, sitting in the living room, listening to James Brown Live at the Apollo. Mr. Brown is pleading for her not to go.

Murph: what's the difference between this and the Cardigans?

Josh: that's a very good question.

"Fifteen" seems to be shifting on me.