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Tiger Lillies and Alexander Hacke: Mountains of Madness
Ether 2006, 17 March 2006
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

I'm not sure I entirely approve of "pop concerts" at the dear old South Bank.

On the one hand, I'm enough of an old fart these days to appreciate the chance of a sit-down and a clear view, rather than the sticky floors and surging crowds of more conventional venues. But the comfort afforded by such civilized surroundings tends not to mesh well with the more irritating behavioural tics of pop concert-goers: loud conversations, endless to-ing and fro-ing, couples making…

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This month's title was originally "my left hand smells of britney spears", a cautionary pronouncement on the dangers of random perfume sampling. (The second, even more worrying, stanza was "my right hand smells of meat"). But over the course of January, the first part of the phrase came to have a significance of its own. The artwork is lifted from Luke Chueh. with the exception of the tray liner, which comes from the splendid Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster; and the disc, which is Greg Simkins' Coyote Trek.

December's mixtape never made it: it was going to be…

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Regina Spektor
4 February 2006
Shepherds' Bush Empire, London

I tend to think of female singer-songwriters as the Achilles' heel of my musical taste - not because of the quality of their music, but because they don't fit conveniently into my otherwise robustly constructed framework for musical appreciation. Said framework tends to be constructed in terms of sounds, rather than songs, and programming, rather than performance. That doesn't leave too much space for the likes of Kate and Tori - and yet there they are.

So, in the spirit of enquiry, I went to see Regina Spektor at the…

I said a while back that I'm not much good at writing about music, beyond "I like that" and "That sucked". But one of my 43Things is "Share my 'music knowledge' with other 'music geeks' as myself". No, I didn't write that description.

Seems like doing more with this journal is probably the best way for me to do that, along with wider circulation of my monthly mixtapes. Another of my 43Things (added idly many moons ago, before they started becoming actual goals rather than daydreams) is to start a record label. Still thinking about whether and how I could…

So much for pulling back a week.

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This month's title courtesy of Mr Hicks, inspired by crowd control at Waterstones of Gower Street. Cover: Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, as photographed by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Gatefold: false-colour image of elementary particles in a bubble chamber. Back cover: artist's conception of a black hole, from goWallpapers.com. Liner: slightly modified from Jason Theodor's iChair and MacinTalk. Disc: total solar eclipse, grepped from somewhere on the interweb.

Welcome to the sleevenotes for there's going to be a hawking riot, a digest of what…

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This month's title courtesy of Heat magazine; cover: Tatiana Urina, wearing Alexander McQueen for the September 2002 US Vogue, from The House of Zob. Gatefold based on Rolex Ice. Back cover, Radiance by De Beers; tray liner by Diesel. Disc: taken from Adam Rowell's Dangerous Liaisons series.

Welcome to the sleevenotes for what i wear to go cheating, a digest of what Sumit was listening to in October 2005. This month, iTunes tells me I played 590 tracks, totalling 2 days 7 hours and 3.96GB of music. This total doesn't take account of tracks I listened to…

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This month's cover and gatefold (above) are based on the B-2 stealth bomber, a spectacular piece of technology whose aesthetic appeal rather disguises its unpleasant functionality.

So these are the "sleeve notes" to the first of a series (hopefully) of mixtapes based around what's been on heavy rotation around my way each month. This edition is (very belatedly) for September 2005, which turned out not to be the greatest time to start. For one thing, I listened to a lot of mixes and live sets this month, which don't really lend themselves to the compilation CD format. For another,…

I love music, and I love writing. But I find it very hard to write about music. So this is really a space for notes about what I've been listening to, plus maybe the odd snippet on either of two trends that I think will (continue) to transform music in the years to come: remix culture and the proliferation of ways to find music that aren't sanctioned by the suppurating music industry oligopoly. Don't expect great music criticism, or attempts at it, though I can't promise that I won't have the odd "sonic cathedral" moment here and there.

I like: electronica, electro, techno, glitch, breaks, industrial, experimental, mash-ups, remixes, pop, dance, groove, post-rock, new wave, electroclash, micromusic, chipstyle, minimalism, ambient, esoterica, hip-hop, grime, instrumentals, j-pop, girl groups, gay duos, itunes, soulseek, musicblogs, vocal breakdowns, singles, diy production, novelty, sampling, distortion, overdrive, internet radio

I don't like: dadrock, classic rock, country, emo, indie miserablists, stoner rock, hair…