Ornette Coleman "Shape of Jazz to Come" CD
Planet Earth DVD "Fresh Water"
Rhythm & Sound "W/The Artists" CD
Anakrid "Unodos" 2CD (both discs)

Got an entertainment center used from the Brown Elephant - my first one ever, really, it was always some makeshift setup before. I remember for awhile I had a dehinged door laying flat on top of two empty speaker cabinets that served as table legs. On top of the door were all of my stereo components, in two small stacks, flanked by another set of speakers, these active. In front of everything: the electric typewriter. Ah, the mid-1990s.... Now that I'm all grown up, I have an entertainment center. It actually has been great moving everything around, even if only just to get some of the dust off of these RCA cables and whatnot. I even found a Skaters CDR. Thing is, while I was moving everything around and had it all unplugged, I wanted to hear some music, and I knew the kids would like some too while they worked on their various indescribable impromptu construction/art projects, so I plugged in their boombox and scanned the CD shelf, saw the Ornette CD which I hadn't listened to in years, thought for sure they'd dig the bouncy grooves and garrulous melodies. Nope. Sometime during track 2 Phil-O ran up to the box and hit pause. "I turned it off because I didn't like it!" he announced. I think he was a little unnerved by just how vocal-sounding the chit-chat, laughter, and especially cries and moans are from Coleman and Cherry's horns. The whole thing did sound more vicious than I remembered. The kids were getting rowdy and I absolutely had to concentrate on the rearranging so I put on a DVD (I had hooked the TV up first just in case) and the choice was Planet Earth. Holy shit, what a program. The kids just couldn't believe their eyes and, when checking it out between rearranging, I couldn't either. Phil had picked the Fresh Water episode and of course it has a lot of amazing stuff, especially the scenery, such as devastating shots of the tallest waterfall in the world, Angel Falls somewhere in South America. The water falls so far that before it reaches the bottom it gets carried away in the wind as mist, which is a pretty magical sight in a TV show packed full of 'em... When that came to an end Rhythm & Sound W/The Artists was our dinner music. "I'm like a burning fire..." That warning/threat/boast/lament is the hook that slow-burns through the first two tracks on this album, sung first by Cornel Campbell on the song "King In My Empire," and then by Jennifer Lara on the song "Queen In My Empire." The hook is so strong, and the delivery so intense, that you will continue to hear it in your head or coming out of your mouth throughout the entire album, a hook that creates its own dub versions through sheer resonance not only when the CD is played but throughout the week while you walk down the street....talk about reverberation and regeneration....the Anakrid album has been hanging around the stereo for awhile and tonight I was more impressed than ever. The first disc Father is really anomalous with its tinkling slow gamelan menace. Sometimes it bugs me, tonight it sounded rich and deep, and I'm always at the very least impressed by its distinctiveness in today's noise/experimental scene. Disc 2 Rapture of the Deep is more traditional dark drone but it's very accomplished and continues to be my favorite of the two discs.