Best music of [Date added] is in the last [12 months]

I looked through my iTunes library to look for the best music I put into it this year. Some of this music didn't come out in 2008, but that's apparently when I found out about it. Some of this stuff is rooted in traditional musical forms, but towards the end of the list it gets a little further out there.

Most of the links are to eMusic pages where you can listen to samples.

• The Carter Family — I had a blast tracking down covers of "John Hardy" especially.


• Camera Obscura — They're all good, but I'll pick Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi.


• Rothko and Caroline Ross — A Place Between


• Department of Eagles — The Cold Nose. — That's not the record that came out this year, but the other led me to this one.


• Anouar Brahem — Le Voyage de Sahar


• Twilight Circus Dub Sound System — Horsie


• My Bloody Valentine — Loveless — My old copy was a cassette!


• Gang Gang Dance — Saint Dymphna


• Fuck Buttons — Street Horrrsing


• Method of Defiance — Inamorata — Laswell and his friends make drum n' bass listenable.


• Charlie Hunter & Bobby Previte — Come in Red Dog, this is Tango Leader


• Shining — In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster

Burnet Woods

A plastic bag within a glade.

LaunchBar 5

Looks like a lot of long-wished-for improvements are coming in the next version of LaunchBar -- support for multiple (global) clipboards is the big one for me. There are a lot of programs that provide this service, but the way LaunchBar is doing it looks very clean and robust -- a lot of data formats are supported. The ability to add an event to iCal from LaunchBar is also very cool.

Go look at the beta.