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My Favorite Music of 2017

I compiled these lists at the end of 2017, but forgot to make this post until now, so now I don't know what to say about them, since I'm already listening to a lot of 2018 music. Whoops. I can at least say that while I think all the stuff I've mentioned is really good, I listened to five of the albums over and over and over, a lot (the ones by James Holden & The Animal Spirits, The Jesus And Mary Chain, LCD Soundsystem, The New Pornographers, and Tinariwen). That doesn't mean I necessarily think those albums are better than the others, but... I don't know... I just kept listening to them A LOT.

(sorry no links this time. compiling all the links is a pain, so I was putting it off, and that's how we made it half way through 2018 before I posted this.)

FAVORITE ALBUMS/EPS OF 2017, in alphabetical order:

Arca - Arca

Ariel Pink - Dedicated to Bobby Jameson

Bitchin Bajas - Bajas Fresh

Emptyset - Borders

Fever Ray - Plunge

Four Tet - New Energy

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - Book of Sound

James Holden & The Animal Spirits - The Animal Spirits

The Jesus And Mary Chain - Damage And Joy

Juana Molina - Halo

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Kid

LCD Soundsystem - American Dream

The New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions

Punctum - Remote Sensing

Tinariwen - Elwan

Honorable mentions 2017, in alphabetical order:

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Rest

Cornelius - Mellow Waves

Daniele Luppi & Parquet Courts - Milano

Ex Eye - Ex Eye

Gas - Narkopop

Hundred Waters - Currency

Luísa Maita - Fio da Memória

Maya Jane Coles - Take Flight

MØ - When I Was Young EP

Peaking Lights - The Fifth State of Consciousness

The Seven Fields Of Aphelion - Keep the Ocean Inside

Stella - Works for You

The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Don't Get Lost

Vermont - II

Visible Cloaks - Reassemblage

Vitalic - Voyager

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2017, in a good playlist order:

Maya Jane Coles - Weak

Luísa Maita - Around You

Big Blood - Blind Owl I

Cornelius - あなたがいるなら

Exploded View - Summer Came Early

Daniele Luppi & Parquet Courts & Karen O - Talisa

The New Pornographers - High Ticket Attractions

The Jesus And Mary Chain - All Things Pass

Lorde - Green Light

Marlene - Sweet

Stella - Come Collect

The New Pornographers - Whiteout Conditions

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Sylvia Says

Four Tet - LA Trance

Sylvan Esso - Die Young

Fever Ray - Mustn't Hurry

Caterina Barbieri - Glory Bitch

TOP SONGS I LISTENED TO A LOT IN 2017 THAT AREN’T FROM 2016 (and that I think I haven’t put on a previous list), in a good playlist order:

Marie Davidson - Naive to the Bone

Marie Davidson - I Dedicate My Life

Chelsea Wolfe - The Warden

Chelsea Wolfe - We Hit A Wall

Chelsea Wolfe - Feral Love

Lush - Undertow

Carla Dal Forno - You Know What It's Like

The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini - Speed of Dark

The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini - Serenade

The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini - Caterpillar

The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini - Blood Red

Jane Birkin - Ex Fan Des Sixties

Jane Birkin - L'Aquoiboniste

Jane Birkin - Le Velours Des Vierges

I already mentioned it in my favorite albums, but I want to give a special shout out in favor of James Holden & The Animal Spirits - The Animal Spirits. That one caught me off guard and it's so incredibly awesome! I had heard of James Holden, but couldn't tell you why, and I tried out this album on a total whim, based mostly on vaguely recognizing his name and kind of liking the cover. And wow! It was instantly one of my very favorite albums of the year. It's right up my alley... kind of electronic, kind of jazzy, kind of Terry Riley-ish, kind of Caribou-ish, all mixed together well. In fact, I'm going to go listen to it again right now, all in one sitting.

[maryhola-blog]

Tools I use for Ruby development, 2017

This is both a guide for others and a useful reminder for me about how the tools I use to do my ruby development work, beyond Ruby itself. It's specific to OS X / MacOS, but most of it applies to Linux as well (just skip the homebrew part). This guide assumes minor familiarity with terminals to execute commands.

Homebrew

Homebrew is what I use to install a lot of software and packages on my computer from the command line. It's fairly standard amongst developers using MacOS, though it's not necessary, since there are other ways of installing the programs I'll be talking about. That said, I will not cover those other ways of installing things.

To install Homebrew, just follow the instructions from the Homebrew homepage. (Note that you shouldn't normally execute a command that downloads the code it runs from the web, like how Homebrew's install command works. But in this case it's OK, as the Homebrew project can be trusted.)

To use Homebrew, you can install things by typing brew install PACKAGENAME (and replacing PACKAGENAME with the name of the package you're installing). Like other package managers, it'll figure out what dependencies are needed and install them automatically to get your package working. Nice and easy. There's more it can do, like searching for packages, uninstalling packes, upgrading packages, and so on, but that's outside of the scope of this post. We'll just be using it to install some things.

Now that we can install things easily with Homebrew, let's start install some more things!

Rbenv & Ruby-build

We could just use the version of Ruby that comes with MacOS, but Ruby is being actively developed, so the built in Ruby version on your computer is probably already somewhat outdated. Rbenv lets us switch between multiple versions of Ruby, while Ruby-build is a Rbenv plugin to make installing different Ruby versions easy. Using these programs, we'll be able to use the specific Ruby versions that we want to use for each app we make.

To install Rbenv (and Ruby-build) with Homebrew, just run brew install rbenv in the terminal and it installs them both by default. Then type rbenv init and it'll set itself up.

To use Rbenv, just run rbenv install VERSIONNAME replacing VERSIONNAME with whatever version you want to install. To see the available versions, run rbenv install -l. It's a big list, since it includes standard Ruby, Jruby, Mruby, Rbx and some others, but to stick with standard Ruby, choose one of the version numbers that doesn't have a prefix (like 2.4.1, instead of rbx-2.4.1). To choose the newest stable version, choose the highest number that doesn't have a suffix (like 2.4.1, instead of 2.5.0-dev). To see all the versions you have installed, run rbenv versions. To see what version will be used in the current directory, run rbenv version.

Once you've installed a Ruby version, you can set it to be the global default with rbenv global VERSIONNAME. That means if you're in a directory where you haven't set the Ruby version, it'll use the global verison. To set a local version for the current directory and all children directories (that don't specify their own version), run rbenv local VERSIONNAME. It's handy to do this for each project you work on.

Now that we can install and set different Ruby versions, let's look into Rubygems a bit.

Gems

Gems are packages for Ruby, and Rubygems is the package manager (installed by default with Ruby) for gems. Often gems are simple libraries that you need to require in Ruby programs in order to use their functionality, but the libraries can also have command line programs. (This is why installing the Rails gem lets you run the rails command.) The libraries can require other libraries in order to run, and the Rubygems program will install any required gems when it installs the gem you want, just like any package manager.

To install a gem with Rubygems, run gem install GEMNAME replacing GEMNAME with the name of the desired gem. One neat thing about Rbenv is that it makes it so gems you install are only for the current Ruby version you have set. That means you can have a completely different set of gems (or gem versions), depending on which of your Ruby versions you're using. One note: after installing a gem with an executable, you'll want to run rbenv rehash to ensure it'll work right.

To view a list of installed gems, run gem list -l. To search for gems, run gem search SEARCHTERM. To find out where a gem was installed to, run gem which GEMNAME. And for more information about gems and how to use Rubygems (there's a lot more it can do!), see the guides on the Rubygems site.

Now that we know a bit about dealing with gems manually, let's see how we can manage a project's gems more automatically with Bundler.

Bundler

Bundler tracks and installs gems for a project. If you have multiple projects going, you might forget which one uses which gems, and this is where Bundler helps. Bundler also helps you share and deploy your projects, since you'll have a record of exactly which gems (and which versions) are needed. It helps automatically get everyone on the same page, so to speak, even if 'everyone' is just past-you, current-you, and future-you.

To install Bundler, run gem install bundler.

Bundler keeps track of gems in a file name Gemfile. You can generate a basic one that's great for starting with by running bundle init in the root directory of your project. Now, to add a gem to your project, you simply add a line to the Gemfile about it (like gem 'rails') and then run bundle install. Bundler will then gem install any gems mentioned in the Gemfile that aren't already installed.

Another useful command is bundle exec COMMAND in order to execute a command in the context of a bundle. If you had Bundler install your gems somewhere special (for instance, vendor/bundle/ is common with Rails apps), bundle exec lets the command be able to easily require those gems.

Bundler can be used in more complex ways than just what I've mentioned, so be sure to check out the Bundler documentation to learn more.

Other Stuff

If you're just getting into development, I suggest you find a nice text editor that you like. I highly recommend either Vim or Emacs. Once you learn how to use one of those (and you do need to learn a bit) you'll likely never go back to a different text editor since they're both so powerful and extensible and easy to use (once you know how), and they've been around forever and many people use them so there's loads of support. I can't sing their praises highly enough. More about Vim/Emacs is a topic for another post (and many others have already written about them), but I'll just note that I'm a Vim guy myself, and I like using MacVim when I'm not just using normal Vim in the terminal.

There are, of course, many different tools to do Ruby development on a Mac, and there is no single right way. These are just the ones I use, and it's possible it may change a bit (I'll make a new post if that happens). I also neglected some tools, like Git. If I went into talking about Git, I'd get very very sidetracked.

[maryhola-blog]

My Favorite Music of 2016

Another year, another single post on my blog...

I really wasn't following much music this year for a number of reasons. Wish I were, though... I want more neat music to listen to! I know I missed some things, and in January 2017 I discovered at least a few of those things I missed, but I'm keeping them off this list since I didn't actually listen to them in 2016. They'll be in the not-2017 list at the end of 2017, I guess.

This year I'm skipping linking to youtube/bandcamp for tracks and instead just putting in spotify playlist links. That said, I urge you to seek out these bands and purchase their stuff... It's worth it and they'd appreciate it, since most aren't too huge of bands.

FAVORITE ALBUMS/EPS OF 2016 (spotify link):

Aesop Rock - The Impossible Kid

Atatakakatta - "of light"

Brian Eno - The Ship

Die Antwoord - Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid

Jesu / Sun Kil Moon - s/t

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith & Suzanne Ciani - FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy

The Limiñanas - Malamore

Loscil - Monument Builders

Prince Rama - Xtreme Now

Róisín Murphy - Take Her Up To Monto

Run The Jewels - RTJ3

TEEN - Love Yes

Trentemøller - Fixion

Honorable mention (spotify link):

Anenon - Petrol

Colin Stetson - Sorrow: A Reimagining of Gorecki's 3rd Symphony

The Julie Ruin - Hit Reset

RAKTA - III

Sui Zhen - Secretly Susan

µ-Ziq - RY30 Trax

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2016 (spotify link):

Aesop Rock - Kirby

Aesop Rock - Rings

Aphex Twin - CHEETAHT2 [Ld spectrum]

Black Mountain - Mothers Of The Sun

Die Antwoord - We Have Candy

EASTER - Kinds of Fruit

The Limiñanas - The Dead Are Walking

Max Richter - Path 5 (Short Edit)

Prince Rama - Bahia

Prince Rama - Fake Til You Feel

Prince Rama - Slip Into Nevermore

Roisin Murphy - Ten Miles High

TEEN - Animal

TEEN - Tokyo

Trentemøller - My Conviction

Trentemøller - River In Me

µ-Ziq - Mydrovip

TOP SONGS I LISTENED TO A LOT IN 2016 THAT AREN’T FROM 2016: (and that I haven’t put on a previous list) (spotify link)

Caroline Rose - Blood On Your Bootheels

Emiliana Torrini - Speed Of Dark

Gary Wilson - 6.4 = Make Out

G D Luxxe - Airforce One

Grauzone - Eisbär (I couldn't find this one on spotify! So here's a youtube link because it's worth it.)

Jain - Come

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - The Last Time I Saw Your Face

La Femme - La Femme Ressort

Shovels & Rope (with Caroline Rose) - Last

Uzeda - What I Meant When I Called Your Name

Finally, special mention needs to go to the first track in this NPR Tiny Desk Concert from 2015 by Caroline Rose. I've listened to it soooooooooo many times. The whole concert's good, but that first track! So good! Here's hoping it'll be on her new album. (Now I'm off to go listen to it another 10 times in a row.)

[maryhola-blog]

My Favorite Music of 2015

My only reflection on the past year... Perhaps it's a holdover from when I used to work at a record store.

My listening habits have changed in the past year, so it's a bit harder to keep track of what I listened to and liked the most. I think I forgot something(s)...

FAVORITE ALBUMS/EPS OF 2015:

Acid King - Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere

Alessandro Cortini - Forse 3

Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld - Never Were the Way She Was

Colleen - Captain of None

Courtney Barnet - Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit

Emika - Drei

FKA Twigs - M3LL155X

Föllakzoid - III

Kaleida - Think EP

Mademoiselle K - Hungry Dirty Baby

Master Musicians of Bukkake - Further West Quad Cult

YACHT - I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler

Honorable mention:

Aphex Twin - Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt2

Computer Magic - Mindstate

Holly Herndon - Platform

Hot Chip - Why Make Sense?

Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Désarroi

Laura Marling - Short Movie

Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love

Sunn O))) - Kannon

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2015:

Alessandro Cortini - Senza Aria

Alessia Cara - Here (video directed by Aaron A)

The Chemical Brothers ft. Q-Tip - Go (video directed by Michel Gondry)

Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best (video directed by Charlie Ford)

Courtney Barnett - Small Poppies

FKA Twigs - Figure 8

Giorgio Moroder ft. Kylie Minogue - Right Here, Right Now

Hot Chip - Started Right (video directed by Rollo Jackson)

Mademoiselle K - C la Mort

Master Musicians of Bukkake - Where Apollo Meets Delphi

Master Musicians of Bukkake - The Original Argument

Sleater-Kinney - Bury Our Friends

YACHT - Miles & Miles

Years & Years - Real (video directed by Robert Francis Müller)

TOP SONGS I LISTENED TO A LOT IN 2015 THAT AREN’T FROM 2015: (and that I haven't put on a previous list)

Africa Express & Andre de Ridder - In C Mali

Emiliana Torrini - Ha Ha

Emiliana Torrini - Gun

Emiliana Torrini - Tookah

Emiliana Torrini - Caterpillar

Emiliana Torrini - When Fever Breaks

Francis Bebey - Sanza Nocturne

Hail Mary Mallon - Grubstake

Hail Mary Mallon - Jonathan

Hail Mary Mallon - Dollywood

James Murphy - Match 4 Remix

Jenny Wilson - Like A Fading Rainbow

Jenny Wilson - The Wooden Chair

Kaleida - Think

Katy B x Zinc x Wiley - Got Paid

Nozinja - Tsekeleke (Vocal Mix)

Samaris - Tíbrá (directed by ?)

William Onyeabor - Atomic Bomb

William Onyeabor - Something You'll Never Forget

(Please note that if I mentioned the video's director, that means I quite like the video too, in addition to the song.)

[maryhola-blog]

My Favorite Music of 2014

I spent a lot of time in itunes today, and I figured what the hell... let's figure out my fav music that itunes tells me was from 2014...

FAVORITE ALBUMS/EPS OF 2014:

Ben Khan - 1992

The Bug - Exit

EASTER - New Cuisine Pt. 1

Elliphant - Look Like You Love It

FM Belfast - Brighter Days

Hundred Waters - The Moon Rang Like A Bell

Parquet Courts - Content Nausea

Röyksopp - The Inevitable End

Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels 2

Tinariwen - Emmaar

FAVORITE SONGS OF 2014:

Atatakakatta - Hallway Station

Ben Khan - "Drive, Pt. 1"

EASTER - "Smar"

FM Belfast - "DeLorean"

FM Belfast - "Non Believer"

GusGus - "Crossfade"

Hundred Waters - "Murmurs"

Katy B ft. Jessie Ware - "Aaliyah"

The Limiñanas - "I'm Dead"

Matias Aguayo - "Run Away From The Sun"

Obnox - "Molecule"

Obnox - "Raindrops"

Röyksopp ft. Robyn - "Monument"

Röyksopp ft. Jamie Irrepressible - "I Had This Thing"

Shamir - "If It Wasn't True"

Sleep - "The Clarity"

Sophie - "Hard"

TOP 10 SONGS I LISTENED TO A LOT IN 2014 THAT AREN'T FROM 2014:

Acid King - "Electric Machine"

Bomba Estéreo - "Fuego"

Cristobal Tapia de Veer - "Utopia Overture"

EASTER - "Alien Babies"

Ghost Culture - "Mouth"

Global Goon - "Mint Flurry"

Joe Bataan - "Subway Joe"

Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid - "Lyman Place"

Shrinebuilder - "Blind for All to See"

Yosi Horikawa - "Wandering"