i've been pretty preoccupied with an album by this band the mountain goats called 'tallahassee'. it's actually basically just one guy, who sounds appropriately goatish, with an acoustic guitar (though it should be noted that he says: 'i'm a guy with an acoustic guitar, but i'm not one of those guys with an acoustic guitar,' which i quite like).
Man, I love the Mountain Goats. Although, Tallahassee was his first album on 4AD (rather than being self-released, which I think all the previous ones were?) and the first album where he breaks out of the guy-with-guitar thing and has actual musicians'n'things... I kinda prefer the earlier handmade albums, especially "All Hail West Texas". Looking forward to the new album in April, since it's been unusually long for him between Mountain Goats releases.
Have you heard his side project, the Extra Glenns? It's very, very similar, but with cheesier arrangements and more emo lyrics. But endearing nevertheless.
Lately I've been listening to a lot of opera, since I have a class on classical music and one on Nietzsche and Wagner, in which we're currently studying Parsifal. In my spare listeny time, mostly a lot of Miles Davis... I'm also pretty addicted to Joanna Newsom right now.