Not necessarily recent releases, though, as I keep discovering old stuff too, but here are some of the best things I’ve found recently:

Valgeir Sigurðsson “Ekvílibríum” (2007)

Soul Position “Things Go Better With RJ and Al” (2006)

Alias “Resurgam” (2008)

Alias “Muted” (2003)

Dan Friel “Ghost Town” (2008)

Lars Horntveth “Pooka” (2004)

Robyn Hitchcock “Luminous Groove” (boxed set of 8LPs plus digital download of all tracks) (2008)

Clark “Turning Dragon” (2008)

Why? “Alopecia” (2008)

Band of Horses “Everything All The Time” (2006)

Ladyhawk “Ladyhawk” (2006)

Efterklang “Parades” (2007)

Most are available on vinyl LP, all are available on CD. I forgot to include the Robyn Hitchcock boxed set in the photograph, sorry! It’s a lovely boxed set, all on heavyweight vinyl.

I am not a very materialistic person, I don’t particularly care for gadgets and currently I’m trying to cut down on the amount of things I own because simplicity reduces stress for me (even though I don’t collect a wide vaiety of “stuff” anyway). But, when I do buy something, I try and always buy the best that I can afford.

Occasionally things I’ve bought have really changed my life and that of my family. Seeing as I’m not terribly good, or open, in writing about my personal life, I thought I’d run through these inanimate-yet-important objects.

Large format printer

It doesn’t sound like a life changing product, does it? Yet, moving from a good quality Epson A4 printer to a good quality Epson A3+ printer (R1800) made a huge difference to my professional life.

Before, I had had to print and tape together sheets of paper to create larger mockups such as folders, packaging. Buying the printer suddenly enabled me to easily create proofs and mockups of large items, it allowed me to print A3 with bleed. It was not an expensive printer and has since paid for itself over and over in usefulness.

Apple Mac

Yes, predictable I guess, but I have to say that sitting in front of a Mac at Art College enormously changed my life. Until then, I studied film and, although I worked in the film industry for a few years, the seeds of my design career had already been sown.

I continued to play with the Mac, learning applications like Photoshop and Quark, until I landed myself a web design job based on the work I’d produced on that computer. Since then I’ve stayed faithful to the Mac, always preferring the simpler interface, intuitiveness and resultant speed of working. The Mac has since allowed me to pursue a full blown career in graphic design and now stock image creation, too.

Flat screen TV (and DVD/HD recorder)

It’s amazing how this recent purchase has been much more than I expected. We have resisted buying an LCD TV for a long time as it was not an essential purchase but I was getting more and more fed up with our hand-me-down Sony CRT which was huge considering the screen size, had geometry problems, real problems with sharpness in the left and right quarters of the screen and also refused to stay on the screen format you chose.

So, my good friend bought a new TV and when I went over there I was very impressed. I discussed with my wife that we might buy one for ourselves for Christmas. And then Amazon announced a one week only offer on the TV so we jumped.

It’s only a 32″ screen, we don’t need any more. But it’s such a huge improvement in a number of areas.

Firstly, no geometry problems (obviously). The picture is actually straight! Secondly, you can actually access the rear of the television to plug things in - not like our old TV where it was so big it literally went right against the wall. Thirdly, sharpness of image is absolutely wonderful to behold. With games you can finally read small text instead of just guessing. And, not only does it stay on the format you choose but when it’s set to “auto” and you’re watching broadcasts, it switches very quickly to the correct format and stays there.

So, rather than just address one issue, this TV has improved a large number of aspects in one fell swoop and has been a very worthwhile purchase.

As an aside, the DVD/HD recorder we bought about a year ago also had the same kind of effect, improving so many things it was a huge step forward.

Maxon Cinema 4D

Yes, I’m not saying Photoshop changed my life (though I’m sure it did by getting me into design) but instead I’ve singled out Cinema 4D by Maxon. It’s a superb 3D modeling and rendering application which, in the last year, has enabled me to become a serious stock image artist.

The beauty of it is that Cinema 4D is a joy to use and is wonderfully simple. Everything you create is part of an object “tree” which you can see in a side panel, allowing quick and easy manipulation of everything in your scene from models to lights and textures to special effects.

I used Cinema 4D for client work but last year started to use it to realise all kinds of ideas I had for stock, and it has proved to be a fantastic tool to bring these ideas to life. Another reason it’s been so life-changing is that stock is starting to become an alternative income for me and I hope, if I can spend more time on it, stock images may give me the flexibility to change my career a bit and go back to my old design job.

Tonearm, mains conditioner, phono amplifier, record player, speakers…

Yep, I couldn’t talk about life changing purchases without mentioning the audio equipment which recently has been bringing me so much pleasure. Not much point in me going on and on about it here as I do so many hi-fi posts but, suffice to say, I’ve really got the bug in a big way.

My interest in pursuing realistic audio reproduction only enhances my love of music, I think. I certainly wouldn’t say I’ve become blinded by the technology to the point of forgetting the music - there’s so much exciting new music out there every week, the hardest part is deciding what to get!

The music I listen to has become such an integral part of my life that it’s not so much life changing as providing a soundtrack to my life, helping if I feel stressed or down, motivating me to work or just making things better.

I’ve suffered from tinnitus now for about seven years.

I’m also a big, big music lover. I am actively seeking out new music and bands all the time. Not only do I have an insatiable desire for music but I have got hooked on reproducing music, to try and get it sounding as realistic as possible.

Hence my audio electronics, my building of kits and speakers, my search for the audio truth (within a certain budget of course).

So, you might wonder how tinnitus and music get on with one another. It’s not an easy combination for me.

My ears ring constantly, the left more so than the right. I should point out that while it is there all the time, it’s not so intrusive that I cannot work and live normally, most of the time I actually forget about it, because with normal background noise and attention on other things it does get pushed into the background.

The worst time is when I’m tired, the ringing can become really unbearable because it’s so intrusive. Also I really miss absolute silence. And, silence is really what you need when trying to listen to music.

The other thing is that the tinnitus makes the sound distort; high frequencies are especially bad. It often means I need to wear an ear plug in my left ear. When I go to see gigs I sometimes use both ear plugs, sometimes just the left one, depending on the volume. Same for the cinema.

However there is some salvation in the form of alcohol. Drinking a bottle of beer really helps the ringing enormously—drinking two bottles is even better! The alcohol really dulls the ringing, taking the nasty high frequency edge right off it and leaving me to listen to the music in (relative) peace.

The result is a bottle or two of beer makes for a much better listening session. Red wine doesn’t seem to have the same effect, you might be interested to know. And more than two bottles of beer doesn’t remove any more of the effects of the tinnitus, it just makes it harder to put the needle on the record!

Since I wrote this post I’ve ordered more music and had to revise my opinion of a few of the shops, so here’s the revised countdown with notes, now in more of an order.

(more…)

I’ve got some great new music and some great slightly-older music, found some new places to buy from and also how to hear stuff.

So here’s the best of the purchases:

Battles “Mirrored”
Sage Francis “Human the Death Dance”
Menomena “I am the Fun Blame Monster!”
Chrome Hoof “Pre-Emptive False Rapture”
Department of Eagles “The Cold Nose”
Spoon “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”
Okkervil River “The Stage Names”
Amon Tobin “Foley Room”

Older stuff purchased this year:

Calexico “Garden Ruin” (2006)
Cursive “Happy Hollow” (2006)
Danielson “Ships” (2006)
Squarepusher “Hello Everything” (2006)
King Geedorah “Take Me to Your Leader” (2003, I got the last one Ninja Tune had!)
Deerhoof “The Runners Four” (2005)
Bonnie Prince Billy & Matt Sweeney “Superwolf” (2005)

All come HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

One of the best things to come out of 2007 is that I’ve discovered a way for me to actually purchase music with some regularity. One of the hardest things about buying vinyl is that, because of the limited number of pressings, you need to pretty much buy albums as soon as you can after they are released otherwise they can become hard to get.