Projects
Not that many things going on at the moment: besides my regular job at Boords, I’m trying to focus my energy on shipping my SaaS Project: an online platform specifically for owners of restaurants, cafes, bars, and similar businesses.
Things I liked a lot recently:
The Good Place
For some reason I was hesitant to start this show, but it turned out to be such a wonderful, funny, and well crafted show. It’s one of those shows that can be wonderfully subtle and modest in some moments, and nicely over-the-top absurd in others. It also doesn’t get boring because of the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways the show develops. I’m also rather fond of Ted Danson after seeing him in Bored To Death a few years ago. Keeps on giving :)
Anyway, greatly recommended. It’s by the same “The Office” writers who co-created Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Micheal Schur and Greg Daniels).
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Yep, because of Netflix we are currently getting a double dose of Micheal Schur and Greg Daniels. Besides The Good Place, we are currently also big fans of the show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In a way, a similar formula as Parks and Recreation. I love all of the characters (except maybe two), and the nice way they’ve developed themselves over 5 seasons.
The War on Drugs
So, this band has been on this page for about a year now because of their album Lost In The Dream, which I discovered sometime last year, but this year they released a new album: “A Deeper Understanding” which for me might just be album of the year, I love it so much.
Sufjan Stevens
Yep, it took way too long, but now I’ve finally discovered Sufjan Stevens, so excuse me while I slowly make my way throught his catalog of songs 😉. The reason I finally checked him out is the collaborations leading to the Planetarium project (see below), but besides that I’ve been playing a lot of Carrie & Lowell recently, some of it I even tried to play on guitar to moderate success.
Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly & James McAlister
I’m a fan of The National, so it wasn’t a surprise that this album appeared in my recommendations at some point during this year (one of the members is part of this collaboration). I found it one of the most interesting and beautiful music I’ve listened to this year. I found the overall atmosphere, instrumentation and the orchestral bits really nice.
It’s not perfect, but I really appreciate the ambition and the end result of this collaboration. It also introduced me properly to Sufjan Stevens. As a bonus, check out this
Sleep Well Beast by The National
I like the National, and their latest album is great.
Pond
Sharing some band members and a snare sound with the band Tame Impala (also one of my favourites), this band has been the soundtrack for a large part of this year. Mostly just the last two albums (“The Weather” and “Man It Feels Like Space Again”). I love their sound and their songs are just a lot of fun.