The piles are still everywhere. The idea of replacing jewel boxes with slick plastic sleeves is still a great (if theoretical) one. Finding the time has been the problem. For a while, my dad was doing the physical swap, and then I'd come home and enter the data into a spreadsheet I'd created. Things were progressing nicely, but then I got very busy with all manner of software and writing projects and all of the 'extra' time vanished. The result is a partially deconstructed CD collection living alongside many piles of 'unprocessed' discs. In short, a mess.

To be honest, this state of affairs is not all that different from the norm. We are not slobs at Chez Saleski. I mean, you won't find a half-eaten tuna sandwich behind a pile old books. On the other hand, there is clutter. Clutter that sometimes threatens to swallow the 'important' things (read: stuff that I know I bought but well... it's just got to be around here somewhere!)

Yesterday, Blogcritics published its 2007 writers music picks column. Right in the middle of some fine musical choices was Chris Beaumont's entry on Tomahawk (You may read later in the comments below, that this last sentence is the best part of this post. Hmmm... the commenter may be right.) Anyhow, this made me remember that I owned a copy of the disc and had only listened to it once. Where the heck did that thing go?! It's not in any of the small piles on the piano....it's not in the piles in the library (so named because, like nearly every room in our house, it's filled with books — this one just happens to have only books)... it's not in any of the stacks on the stairs leading up to the third floor. Ah, it's part of the group of orphaned CDs sitting outside my listening room!

Much like a physical tip-of-the-tongue experience, I felt so relieved after rooting out this disc. Even better, right underneath Tomahawk was another CD that I'd forgotten about: Asmodeus - Book of Angels, Vol. 7. The story here is that John Zorn updated his original Masada songbook with another collection of themes, this time being presented by different groups of musicians rather than the core Masada group. Volume 7 finds a jazz power trio of sorts (Marc Ribot, Calvin Weston, Trevor Dunn) blasting their way through the material. It's really astounding stuff, swaying back & forth between ambient parts to full-on sonic assault — a little Sonny Sharrock here, a little Prime Time there — all while managing to not be derivative of either.

I think I've only listed to this disc once, so it's a little like finding that last hidden present under the Christmas tree.

...and they say clutter is a bad thing. Hah!