Tag Archives: The Rural Alberta Advantage

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Hi-Fi Fifteen: Geography

What makes a person feel a strong connection to a strip of land? The Olympics are here, and I’m doing my best to root for the USA. I’ve never been very patriotic and am not particularly proud of my dusty little Northern California hometown.

Still, I am constantly moved by artists paying tribute to their beloved geography. For this month’s Hi-Fi Fifteen, the three of us contributed songs titled and about the love of neighborhood, state, and country. We follow the moon, moving west to east from our Pacific coastline to the valley of the Himalayas.


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Ultimate Mixtape: 150 – 126

Rather than act as responsible DJs, tracklisting these 150 songs in an intelligible, well-conceived playlist, we’re letting the rankings dictate. Like an MTV Video Countdown or American Top 40, our favorite songs of the Idle Time era are being presented in inverse order, counting down to our number one.

We pride ourselves on the genre variety that we bring to a project like this, and it doesn’t surprise us when, as in most cases, the more uniquely personal favorites tend to filter down to the bottom of the list. The result, this first twenty-five-track mix, is probably the most schizophrenic of the lot, bouncing back and forth from one outlier to another. Richard David James, as The Tuss and Aphex Twin, makes two appearances in this first jam.

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2015 Tune Tourney’s Final Four: Scandinavia vs. Canadia

MH has already commented on his busted bracket. Mine doesn’t look too much better, but I did have Chet Faker advancing to the Final Four ahead of Hiatus Kaiyote. My prediction in California was bounced in the second round. That doesn’t bother me in the slightest, of course, as I’m very excited to see locals The Y Axes representing our home state.

The left side of the bracket looks nothing like my pre-tournament prognostication, however…
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2015 TUNE TOURNEY: More Canadia Round 2 Matchups!

It’ll happen one day… A sixteen-seed will take down a top-ranked bracket goliath. But not today. Despite Death From Above 1979 drawing even in the polling against Drake’s top-seeded “Hold On,” the Canadian favorite pulled ahead late to keep his tournament dream alive. Drake moves on to face “Kaputt” after Dan Bejar’s schizophrenic first-round battle resulted in a narrow win for Destroyer over The New Pornographers.



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2015 TUNE TOURNEY: Canadia Round 1 Match-Ups!

We’re closing out the work week with two more 2015 Tune Tourney posts featuring four preliminary battles apiece. This first post tips off the top half of the Canadian bracket. Listen, vote, and campaign. These songs can’t win on their own. Then, if you haven’t done so already, vote for the initial battles in Scandinavia, Oceania, and California.

First up, region frontrunner Drake faces an immediate challenge from Death From Above 1979 and a single off recent album The Physical World. (I’m staying as objective and impartial in these matchup announcements as possible, but I can’t help thinking how cool it would be to see Best Coast take on Drake in the Final Four.)




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