Thinking ahead...

Last weekend it occurred to me that, with so much live music to see in the last week of October and much of November, it would be wise to start considering all the new music that I have acquired during 2013 so far as it relates to those inevitable end-of-year lists. I made a start then and then during the week made a long-list that actually turned out to be rather scary even well before Hallowe'en!
I'm not listening to it all over a few days, which would be like an alternative Glastonbury but without the crowds. Nevertheless my neighbours, if not actually Mendip District Council, might have something to say about that.
If all that were not enough then suddenly my in-box seems to have become filled with enticing new prospects for the months ahead.
Another slight problem is that in order to keep a sense of perspective about all the new music it is necessary also to revisit some that was in that place in previous years. That must include things that I still listen to regularly and also consideration of that which, however enamoured I was at the time, now languishes in the racks of LPs and CDs and is rarely listened to.
   
This is an impossible ideal.
[And a 'Black Box Recorder' lyric - you need to imagine it with Sarah Nixey's crystal diction.]
  
It is however the continuation of a very improbable journey. Seven years ago I could never have foreseen what that first post would lead to and, looking back, I wouldn't change it for anything.
The next issue is all those 2013 albums and EPs that I haven't heard but intended to do so and all those that are still to be released in the next six weeks or so. Arrows - Polly Scattergood, released October 21, being a case in point but as it happens it arrived here today. 
This is not only unfinished business but actually impossible to finish. Back then I would never have imagined that albums such as this, which is another I need to hear, would even be under consideration but one thing leads to another. 

It is a concept related in some ways to "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"!

The EP category was traditionally where I used to start as back in 2007 it seemed a format doomed to extinction and I had few to choose from. I got that idea well and truly wrong, I'm delighted to say!
Fast forward six years and nothing could be further from the truth for - whether digital or physical - it has become the calling card for new artists and existing ones wishing to explore another side to their music. I could spend the whole of the rest of the weekend listening to nothing but EPs released in 2013 that I have come upon during my travels both virtual and to festivals and some of these rank amongst my most listened-to and prized recordings of 2013.

Just to recap, all of this, including the wonderful people I have met along the way and the 1000 or so live acts I have seen, happened simply because I was bored one weekday evening and wished to comment on a blog post. At that time to do so I had to create my own account and, once that activation barrier had been overcome it seemed a waste of effort to not then put it to further use.