[MUSIC] The Sound of L.A.

On Sunday, I found time to enjoy a rare treat: I wheeled the girls around in their twin-seater MacLaren, up and down Minami-Aoyama 6, 5, and some other chome. Mommy was home alone. It was a cold day, though, with my head freshly shaven back down to 2 millimeters all around, and Elise without a cushy MacLaren sleeping bag for the duration of the ride.

With mostly the latter concern on my mind, I took the girls into the Spiral building to get some warmth. Of course, I was fully aware that this afforded me a great opportunity to listen to some CDs. Spiral, like all record shops, is very hit-or-miss, but I do manage to find something I feel like spending money on about once every 30 tries. That might put the Spiral record shop in the top quartile.

I didn't have much time, but in the 5 minutes I had to listen to new offerings before Amelie woke up and started whining, I got a gander of "The Sound of L.A." compiled by Carlos Nino. The first two tracks won me over, with some great sampling that lazily lagged the drum track on at least half the occasion, but then the CD got a little heavy with overly lazy sample-matching that reeked of affectation, and also a couple of telltale signs of the rave-meets-screwdriver-on-chalkboard Cut Chemist sound that I've never really liked.

I was borderline on this decision when Amelie's whining got a little too intrusive for the other customers. Elise had also managed to pry her eyes open, and had just started her contemplative and confused "Where the hell am I?" thing. So off we went, no CD purchase in hand.

But hey what, I just found a megamix from outtakes of the "Sound of L.A." project, all for free on dublab. So that's downloading on iTunes right this minute. Of course, the megamix isn't quite the same thing as what I was listening to on Sunday, but I'll still give my babies credit for the money-saving exercise. Thanks, kids.