This and the two three posts immediately preceding it (now deleted) were an experiment to directly import from Pandora, using their RSS feed, a list of songs that I’d “favorited.” The experiment wasn’t entirely successful because there’s no explanation of what this information represents (although there is a link to the song on Pandora.com), and because I’d naively hoped for a digest rather than a post for every song. Ah well, we live and learn. Next I’ll be playing with a plugin that displays some sort of Pandora info in my sidebar.

The Dawn by DJ Krush from the album Kakusei

More: continued here

If the Mozart Effect teaches us anything, it’s that the results of a flawed study are always at risk of becoming a common expression, a copyrighted product, a popular belief infused with a magic that is difficult to dispel.

I saw Brandi Carlile last night at the Stone Church here in Newmarket, NH. She and her band were at the end of a three-week tour where they’d been supporting Jamie Cullum, and they’re just about to go off on another tour, this time supporting Train.

I fell in love with Brandi’s CD about three months ago and must have played it dozens of times since then. Brandi’s voice was a little rough, this being the end of the tour and all, but nevertheless it was a magnificent concert to a sell-out crowd. Peter Hamelin, one of the owners of the Stone Church, a small, but exquisite venue, reckoned this might be one of the last chances to see her in such an intimate setting, and I have to say that I think he may be right. Brandi, a young woman of just 23 years from Seattle, has an expressive and powerful voice. Her music, and that of her band — my two favorite songs were written by her twin guitarists (they’re literally twins) — is an almost indefinable mix of rock and country, sometimes with a religious quality to it.

A funny thing: Brandi finished her encore with Leonard Cohen’s stirring “Hallelujah,” which The Dresden Dolls, who I saw last month in Exeter, NH, also closed with.

You can hear a couple of tracks at Brandi’s website.