Over the last few years I have complied: ‘The most important album of the year.’ I borrowed the idea from Chet Baker who did a one of theses babies in ’64/65. I think I’ve got four or five now, it’s bad when you can’t remember the size of your own stash but such is modern living and my fading memory.

This year my most important album is dedicated to TLS and that’s not the Times Lit Supp but Tina Louise, who informs me that I know her for 29 years (impossible as I’m only 28). This represents the end of our communications embargo which has foolishly existed for far too long and for which I unfortunately am to blame (I’m not always that goodie flash shoes that you believe that I am) and the beginning of a new Trip, when you are old enough you’ll understand.

So here you are – the most important album of 2010.
1. Scott Walker – The perfect opener and I mean perfect.
2. Johnny Angel – The Carpenters – I think I was depressed because I generally only listen to the wonderful world of the Carpenters when I’m in that state and I remember the moment. I was thinking the beginning of a love affair except that I was rooted to the carpet, alone…nirvana.
3. Listen to me – Jazzanova sampled the opening.
4. Mystery man – tell me about your favourite line in this song and I’m sure we’ll agree it’s got something to do with whisky lips.
5. La comedie – for my favourite, little on the beat writer, who keeps me distracted and unconsciously infatuated with her and those beatnik scribbles.
6. Os mutantes – brilliant! Brilliant!!
7. Come on over to my house – that’s why I was depressed but this is fun, charming and very good.
8. Pink balloon – you know you are on a trip when this tongue in cheek…’would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon’ reinterpretation of sorts gets you nodding.
9. Connie – does my favourite song on this selection. Such a good song.
10. I opted out of the Japan and Hotchip tracks that I had on two previous versions for this Gary Numan classic
11. Classic stuff from Phil and Giorgio
12. The Roots bring the nod factor.
13. Then Chic will keep you dancing
14. & 15. And it goes continental to the point that I’m thinking about how I’d like to be Paris again and doing that dance of connection the tango with someone I’m…yes you know that part
16. Kathleen was a late insert but I’m a big Townes admirer.
17. Pray for rain – I admit that it’s the only song that I like on the new massive attack and it’s perfect right here.
18. Pizzicato 5 – do number #5 – they’ve got a certain quality don’t they
19. Finally a little reprise to end it all off.

I started out in search of ordinary things …I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again …

I not sure if it’s melancholy or if it’s fatigue, it could be both, there is always a multiple choice selection, “All of the above,” I only selected that option when it said, “None of the above,” because that was far trickier of the examiner, the MCQ of my daily existence is far from simple so perhaps all of the above is appropriate.

My head is filled with sweet nostalgia and it’s not even seven and the cars are already sweeping by the flat, Beach Road drivers are confusing an early Autumn evening with the final practice session of the Monaco Grand Prix, the limit is 50 km/h but nobody is living slowly tonight except one person on the 302 balcony.

Pavement are my entertainment, Steve Malkmus is on top form he sings: “I’ve got style miles and miles and it’s wasting…” I just nod in agreement that man said it first in 1992 on the Water Domestic Ep and it’s still relevant this evening. Music is always relevant, it never fails to impact me, it works faster than cheap drugs and stays in my system longer than rehab worthy addictions that I promise to give up every New Year or when the clock strikes one.

I watched most of the third season of Gossip Girl on mute, I put it on in the background while listening to music. I wanted to suss out what  the fuss was about and even without sound it soon became apparent why certain women liked it; they see themselves in, what’s her name, loving her wardrobe as she goes glitzing around looking fashionably preppy.

While Gossip Girl is not for me White Collar is more my style, it airs soon and thankfully there is a second season coming as I’ve blitzed most of the first, it reminds me of two other shows which I enjoy, Life and Burn Notice, the latter is on the same network, make a knot in your tie and try to catch it.

But it is baseball that has my firm attention at the moment and in particular WCBS’s John Sterling, the Voice of the New York Yankees. It’s an internet radio broadcast that you subscribe to via Major League Baseball and once purchased you get to hear all of the games and there are many for just $25 up until October. I especially like the afternoon games which start here down South at seven in the evening, so once the working day dissipates and the evening officially begins with a beer and some internet radio, I am extremely contented.

Not contented enough though that I am able to sleep uninterupted, it’s been a battle of late and even when it happens then that blasted Fog Horn will sound at three, alarming passing ships who proceed cautiously in the misted night, and always making sure that I am kept in the loop when all I want is the pleasure of Technicolored, sweet, vermouth dreams.

As LCD Sound System sang: ‘It’s not getting better, it’s not getting better, man, it’s just getting old! Aarh whoo!”

Folktronica? Another one of those genres that has appeared and disappeared over the last few years without having the decency to specifically outline where the sound begins and where it’s suppose to end in the modern music continuum.

I suppose the ‘folktronica’ sound can best be framed by that series which was released on Sonar Kollektiv dubbed ‘Our Secret Love,’ and for me that was where the peg hit the ground. It was also at that time when a girl from the East Coast introduced me to Jose Gonzalez and there started my personal point of departure.

I have compiled five ‘folktronica’ selections my own secret love, a selection tracks that plays between the lines, some are on the folk side of the spectrum others more on the electronica side hopefully never absolute but always worthy of falling within the boundaries of ‘my’ secret love.

It has been a while since volume five was completed and now with my appetite once again whetted by a series of events and a new wave of sounds, my inspiration has swelled and so too has that need for showing off.

Volume 6 the footnotes.

There were two tracks and one person that shaped volume six, The Beta Band’s, Dry like Rain, remember High Fidelity and that dark art of making compilation tapes, the scene where he plays ‘The Beta Band’ and the music is still relevant today, the other was The XX, Basic Space, how good is this hypnotic, minimalistic track which simply echoes in your subconscious at the oddest times, droning Baasic Space. The rest just kind of came together around those two songs. I have purposely left out the person but this is where you get to ‘believe’ that it’s you …And of course you were, yes you were! The inspiration.

The selection has a few of the usual suspects but there’s also a few others which I’ve discovered.

Hopefully it meets with your approval. Uploading the proof probably this evening and here it is- 302 plays folktronica 6.