Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm

The Range--"Potential" (electronica) Brass Tracks--"Good Love" (electronica/jazz/hip-hop) The 1975--"I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware" (electro-pop) Dawn Golden--"Still Life" (electronica/ambient) Blood Orange--"Freetown Sound" (rock?) James Blake--"The Colour in Anything" (electronica/ambient) Phantogram--"Three" (electro-rock) Massive Attack--"Ritual Spirit EP" (trip-hop) Jack Garratt--"Phase" (electronica/rock/???) Various Artists--"Hamilton Mixtape" (broadway/hip-hop) Honorable mentions: School of Seven Bells--"SVIIB" (rock) Various Artists--"Day of the Dead" (Grateful Dead covers organized by The National) It was also a good year for EPs. A few of my favorites: Petit Biscuit--"Petit Biscuit EP" Verite--"Living EP" The Range--"Superimpose EP" [Editor's note: I spend a surprising amount of time look...

 2017 was a year of change--much of it bad (pretty much everything political, other than the reawakening of liberal activism), and some of it good (new job, etc.). It was also a pretty good year for music. So here's my top 10 (with four bonus albums) for 2017: Sylvan Esso "What Now" (alt rock/electro-pop--I've been wanting this album for like two years now and it's finally out and so so good) The xx "I See You" (alt rock--a lot of people knock this album, but I think it shows an interesting evolution for their sound, post Jamie xx's solo works) SZA "Ctrl" (R&B--been a fan of her projects for some time, but only heard this album in its entirety like a week ago) Jidenna "The Chief" (hip hop) The War on Drugs "A Deeper Understanding" (alt rock--think 1980s Grateful Dead) Jaymes Young "Feel Something" (best surprising live opener of 2017) Gorillaz "Humanz" (alt rock/electro-pop/????) The National ...

Janelle Monae--"Dirty Computer" (nothing else was even close) Brasstracks--"For Those Who Know, Pt. II EP" Kurt Vile--"Bottle It In"   The National--"Boxer(Live in Brussels)"  Marian Hill--"Unusual" Various Artists--"Black Panther The Album" Chvrches--"Love is Dead" Let's Eat Grandma--"I'm All Ears" Lo Moon--"Lo Moon" twenty one pilots--"Trench" Little Dragon--"Lover Chanting EP" (couldn't leave this off) Honorable mentions (things I discovered too late in the year to really listen much, but that I'm liking a lot so far): Christine and the Queens--"Chris" The 1975--"A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships" Young Fathers--"Cocoa Sugar" Blood Orange--"Negro Swan" It was also a great year for soundtracks--in addition to Black Panther, I particularly loved "Annihilation" (very Alt-J-esque at times), Ali Shaheed Muh...

Waiting to join an online birthday party for a dear friend, looking at a plate with five high-end ryes for my tasting pleasure (spoiler: Templeton's 2018 barrel strength rye is better than it should be), seemed like it was finally time to pull the trigger on my 2020 top ten albums. What did I miss? (I enjoy the new Thundercat but haven't listened to it that much yet.) 1) “Free Love”, Sylvan Esso 2) “Folklore”, Taylor Swift 3) “Fall to Pieces”, Tricky 4) “Circles”, Mac Miller 5) “some kind of peace”, Olafur Arnalds 6) “Good Souls Better Angels”, Lucinda Williams 7) “The Slow Rush”, Tame Impala 8)- “Serpentine Prison”, Matt Berninger 9) “Womb”, Purity Ring 10) “Punisher”, Phoebe Bridgers Honorable mentions: 1) “Have We Met”, Destroyer 2) “Golden Ticket”, Brasstracks 3) “Warnings”, I Break Horses 4) “New Me, Same Us”, Little Dragon 5) “Your Hero is Not Dead”, Westerman Best Eps: 1) “Dear Illusion”, Adaline 2) “Flight Tower”, Dirty Projectors 3) “I Shine, U  Shine”, Rimon [Editor...

It was a pretty weird year in music for me, as I spent a lot of time trying to listen my way through my dad’s vinyl collection but still managed to hit more than 1,200 hours of music streaming along the way. That journey sent me down the rabbit hole pretty frequently on older artists like the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, and even some bands that don’t start with “the.” Nevertheless, I found some time for new music, and here are the ten albums from 2021 that I think you should listen to if you haven’t already: “Screen Violence” – Chvrches (electro-pop): I’m probably always going to put a new Chvrches album on my list anytime they release one, but this is genuinely a great album and shows growth for the band. “Good Girls” is a brutal call to arms, “How not to Drown” a really interesting collaboration with Robert Smith, and Lullabies a nice throwback to their first couple of albums. “Hotel Surrender” – Chet Faker (electro-pop): always been a fan of Nick Murphy, and this was a nice b...

It’s that time of year again, so here’s my top ten albums of 2022. As always, curious to hear where you agree or disagree, or what I’ve missed this year. Rating everything on a scale of 10 possible Denalis this time. Phil’s 2022 Top 10 albums 1)       “angel in realtime.” – Gang of Youths. This album broke my heart and rebuilt it over and over. It’s a beautiful mediation on loss, grief, parents, and purpose, and the opening track (“You in Everything”) is on my no-random-shuffle list lest it come on when I’m working or driving or can’t stop to listen and tear up. I’m sure y’all are tired of hearing me rave about this album, but it’s truly an exceptional piece of art, and my life is better for knowing it. 27.5 out of a possible 10 Denalis. 2)       “Midnights” – Taylor Swift. It’s super weird to me that Taylor Swift makes my list again, but this is a great album. “Anti-hero” is the track everyone raves about, but honestly I think “Maro...

After more than a decade of losing a couple of days a year to fighting with and backing up crappy (but cheap) external hard drives, I have caved and purchased a good, redundant network-attached storage device. This is a Synology DS920+  ( Amazon ) with four hard drive bays that accept both 2.5" and 3.5" drives, as well as two slots for M.2 formfactor SSD Caches. I'm currently running: 2 x 4 TB Seagate Ironwolf hard drives in a RAID configuration to automatically back up all of my computers (three macs, two PCs, and the Linux-based Roon ROCK that drives all of the streaming media players around my house). 2 x 16 TB Seagate Exos Enterprise-grade hard drives in a RAID configuration set up as a network share drive so that I can stop e-mailing documents back and forth between machines. Is this overkill? Probably. But as the keeper of all of my dad's photos and documents for my family, I feel much better knowing that three different hard drives would have to fail in order t...

[MSRP $350, $150 on Amazon as of 11/13/22, paid $180 in August 2022] [ Tl;dr:  These headphones are weak in their MSRP range, but if you get them on a substantial sale, they’re great for use cases where you want some noise cancelation and a more durable headset that won’t break your heart if you lose or break them.] Scores: Cost-agnostic: 5 out of 10 Denalis Cost-sensitive: 6 out of 10 Denalis Beats Studio3 Wireless Beats Studio3 Wireless on a new ME-themed puck Intro. I bought my first pair of Beats headphones back in … 2014? I think? I was going on a train trip to Montana, and it was supposed to take something like eleven hours. I had a pair of Bose QC25s with really good active noise cancelation (ANC), but I didn’t want to deal with a cord while I was trying to sleep on a moving train. I’d been coveting the Beats Studio Wireless for a while (my car at the time had a 10-speaker Beats by Dre sound system that I’d absolutely fallen in love with), so the train trek was all the justi...

Sometimes you don't have a lot of time or energy, but want to get a quick, tasty dinner ready. If you're like me, your go-to quick dinner at home might well be breakfast for dinner. When I was in my early twenties, I discovered the joy of a good, quick scrambled egg (bonus points if you have farm fresh eggs, which I often due thanks to my lovely neighbors). Add in a frozen sausage patty (this is a Tyson patty from the local restaurant supply store, and I just leave a bag of these in the freezer most of the time), and you've got a quick, protein-rich and low-carb meal that only takes a couple of minutes. But sometimes you just really want a flaky, salty, fluffy biscuit. You can go with a canned biscuit and I won't think any less of you. I just find that as I get older, I taste the preservatives more and more, and I wanted to see if I could find a quick, scratch-made biscuit that wouldn't take a lot longer than opening a can of Pilsbury (or more realistically, the bou...

For posterity (and so I can remember in six months), here's my current favorites in a number of categories: Favorite Dogs: Denali Bodhi Nika All other dogs. Favorite Audio Stuff Overall headphone: Meze 109 Pro Noise-canceling headphones: Apple AirPods Max (for airplanes), Apple AirPodsPro Gen2 (for everything else) [and that irritates me to say] Closed-backed headphones: ZMF Bokeh Closed (review forthcoming) IEM: Campfire Audio Holocene  (review forthcoming) Audio calls: Status Audio Between ANC (from computers), AirPodsPro Gen2 (everything else) Spatial audio: AirPodsPro Gen 2   Dog walking: Moondrop Chu II  (review forthcoming) DAC/Amp: Schiit Jotunheim 2/Modius (balanced), Schiit Bifrost/Asgard 2 (single-ended) [honorable mention: Apos Gremlin ] Mobile DAC: ALO Pilot Dongle DAC/Amp Audio Setups [as of 3/14/25] Main: Devialet Expert 140 Pro Super Integrated KEF LS50 Standmounts (on cheap stands) Rega RP3 Turntable w/Nagaoka MP-110 cartridge Apple TV 4K Kyocera DA-71...

The 2010 Chateau Pre La Lande Bordeaux (originally $13, I believe?). Opened and decanted immediately before dinner. Nose: Red fruits, a little pencil eraser, and acetone on the nose (but not in an unpleasant way). If I hadn't looked at the bottle, I'd probably have assumed this was 2018 or 2019. Still very dark purple in color, good legs.  Palate: Good fruit-forward flavors, pronounced but mellowing tanins. Had an interestingly minty note on the palate when first opened, but that appears to have disappated over the last hour or two and mellowed into ... stone fruits, I think? Particularly into slightly underripe nectarine. Very pleasant, particularly for the price. I'll look for more of these in future Garagiste offerings. Pairing: Served (excellently) with a prime ribeye, garlic mashed potatoes, and well-roasted beets; held up to the fattiness and richness of the beef and the garlic mashed potatoes and the sharpness of the beets, and is growing ever more pleasant as it...

  My dad died in December of 2019.  Way to start on a down note, amiright? December of 2019 and January of 2020 were a crazy time in the world. We were just starting to hear about this thing called COVID-19, and trying to figure out how it was going to impact our world and our lives. We set up a wake for Dad for the first week of March of 2020. We arranged food, a location, and invited a bunch of people. And on the morning of the wake, we got a call from a dear friend asking us to cancel, because the first cases had been detected in our county (and the wake would have been a pretty broad cross-section of the elderly folks in the community, include a whole bunch of teachers and school employees). We canceled.  Because our extended family was already on the way, we opted to give them the option of coming to our house for a very small gathering where we could talk about and remember Dad. As part of that, my brother and I prepared brief remarks. Mine was, I am quite sure, poi...

[Tl;dr: I really like the AirPodsPro Gen 2. I didn't want to. But damn, Apple figured some things out.] Scores: Cost-agnostic: 10 out of 10 Denalis Cost-sensitive: 9 out of 10 Denalis. [Update 1/20/24: after more than a year, I thought it was worth briefly revisiting the AirPods Pro 2. They're ... still great. They more or less live in my pants pocket, and when I recently thought that I'd finally misplaced them, I immediately went to Costco and bought another pair (in my defense, they were like $80 off on sale). I found my original pair, but I'm holding on to the second as a backup. The new version is identical in almost every way to the version that I originally reviewed, with the exception of having swapped the Lightning charging port on the case to a USB-C port to match the new generation of iPhones (and apparently they added some support for the new Apple VR device which will mean nothing to me). The sound is still really, really good. To the point where I've st...

[Tl;dr: The Apple AirPods Max are a really good set of headphones with a rich feature set, broad utility, and all-around good sound. They do have a few flaws, and they’re REALLY expensive. I probably wouldn’t pay MSRP for them right now given the other options out there, but they’re still a really well-designed and built piece of hardware that are easy for people already in the Apple ecosystem. Scores: Cost-agnostic: 8 out of 10 Denalis Cost-sensitive: 6 out of 10 Denalis.] Sound. The sound is deep and rich, with really impressive bass and sub-bass response for a headphone. It’s still weird to hear the low bass rumble clearly without feeling it in my chest, but the response is nimble and crisp, with very little lagging or blurring even during sections with rapid movement (like Massive Attack’s “Paradise Circus”). It even does a pretty good job of reproducing some intentionally-mastered splatter (like in Robert Glasper’s “Treal” (ft. Yasiin Bey)). That said, the bass is a little punchy...