(Posted verbatim from my Open Diary entry).

To make up for two weeks missing Friday Pragmatism, I'll write a little something about my listening habits this year.

Courtesy of last.fm, members are able to chart their listening habits through the player of their choice. It can be an interesting tool for finding new artists and strangers with like-minded taste, however I use it primarily as a personal database.
Last.fm have released their Best of 2009 (individual entry style) list which only includes artists with releases in 2009, and after browsing through the top 200, I was glad to only have…

In July this year a few things came together; a thorough listen-through of Yuki's best-of Five Star, Perfume's smashing new album Triangle (or ⊿ to be accurate!), and my first, prolonged exposure to the many wondrous joys of Keroro Gunso. Because pretty much the entire second bracket consists of Keroro OP and ED themes, the fourth iteration of J-Pop Sunshine is so named, and so it should be.

This is also the first J-Pop Sunshine to be edited up to make a great, seamless experience through tracks 1 to 9. Even if there's a pause, it has been measured to…

I have two temporary compilation-types that I regularly make; Keepers and now Quicklist. I've decided to record the Quicklist I made for a drive I went on with a mate last-night. Basically it comes down to a selection of tracks that I want to hear in the car, and hopefully some others that compliment the mood.

This one was driven by the Floor on the Intelligence remix of Star Line by Genki Rockets, followed by my essential summer anthem, Chase the Sun by Planet Funk, the 8 minute extended version. Teleopomusik's Breathe is also one I've been listening to quite…

Write 4 begins where 3 ended, Mark Isham's With Us Alone.
This playlist expresses the birth and death of all things.
It is both celebration and mourning.
Hope tempered by reality.
Mostly it's acknowledgement.
Acknowledgement of the singularity and isolation of life.
The specific experience that will never be shared.
The secrets that will never be revealed.
Affections never felt.
Enthusiasm never extinguished.
The completeness in knowing that no matter what, my life is my own.
Regardless of where I am taken, and where I take myself, I am both proud and sorrowful.
Love, exhaustion, hope, frailty, life and death,…

It's interesting what Write to stay alive has become. Each of the four playlists so far maintains the themes of introspection and healing, yet each one is quite different and I find myself listening to different iterations depending on my emotional state. Having closed the second compilation, Girls returns to open a much darker, insular and more personal set.

1. Takagi Masakatsu - Girls - Coieda (4:36)
2. Hiroyuki Sawano - From Sunset to Sunrise - Taiyou no Uta (5:44)
3. Choro Club feat. Senoo - Kakaribi no Nocturne - Aria the Natural(3:03)
4. Underworld & Gabriel Yared - Will…

Write to stay alive has become a staple in my listening experience. When things get in a bad way for me, I listen to these heavily. On the surface they may seem somewhat dark but this isn't really the full ideology of the atmosphere I create for myself. These pieces of music really do heal me, and facilitate me to appreciate the place where I am when I'm wherever I am. I'm hesitant to re-enforce too much this idea of being in a 'bad' way, or when I feel 'ill'. Mental illnesses are interesting and intriguing things indeed, but the…

At the end of August 2008, I did some travelling, however it coincided with a down-cycle and I was extremely ill. There were many other factors that made things worse, but during the trip I had my mp3 player with me as always and made a long playlist that I listened to almost every day. The nature of these pieces of music are such that each one heals, and when combined, they have an amazing power. During the trip I engaged the other activity that heals me, or at the least in whatever element keeps me sane, and that is…

And finally, 'Intimacy' is done.
As with 'Surrender', the Romance Nouveau is an evolution of the original 'Sensual' series, and 'Intimacy' finally rounds off almost all of the original themes. There may be one more playlist to come, but it's much less intimate, revolving around infatuation and casual interaction.

The centrepiece for these themes has always been Drophere by dZihan & Kamien. It is the first piece of music that inspired me to create playlists focussed on love and intimacy; fitting then that it becomes the centrepiece of the most personal and erotic of the selections.

1. Four Tet -…

As stated in the prior entry for 'Together', Romance Nouveau has been brought about by an evolution of a prior set of playlists I'd made in the past called 'Sensual'. The ideologies of sharing time together in different ways, casually, playfully and intimately, to name a few, have inspired me to focus on some of these elements through their own modes of music.

'Surrender' originally was the first, stand-alone evolution of 'Sensual', but focussing more closely on what I've come to call 'the moment of surrender', the point at which one fully accepts, embraces or pursues infatuation and engagement, the…

Driving a car restricted to CDA has certainly changed the way I playlist, and I'm quite happy with the compilations I'm issuing these days. Sure enough, some of them are temporary until they merge and evolve into tighter, better flowing and more focussed collections, but I find myself hitting the mark quickly when working with the 80 minute format.

Romance Nouveau is an evolution of a series I started in 2005 called 'Sensual', however now that my music library has expanded and my playlisting skills have improved, I find that it's appropriate to revisit this idea of romantic intimacy in…