Materialwise, balancing between mobility and the quality of life is juggling. One bottleneck is the books. Sound system is another.

I had been eyeing for Harman Kardon Soundsticks for a while, but eventually changed my mind and invested in a pair of reasonably priced Edirol nearfield micro monitors. First of all, being cubic in form instead of some alien design they fit better to a Türkenkoffer. They also offer some professionality placebo and compensate the lack of subwoofer with a smart technique that deals with the overtones of low frequencies. I have a wishful theory that psychoacoustically generated bass tones penetrate neighbours' walls to a lesser success.

Well, they are no Genelecs of course, but they do make some music sound better (and some worse) than it used to be. I had no idea that technology could have such an effect to the reception. It has a direct impact on playlist choices. In general, especially Norwegian music sounds really good with these.

Now playing: Nils Petter Molvær - Tløn

My brother sent me this, because he knows I'm a (thumbless) closet bassist.

One indie record I'm looking forward this year comes from Würzburg heavy instrumental band Omega Massif. I found them last year on mp3-blog Lupatarkastaja. Their demo Kalt is downloadable from their webpage and Myspace.

Listening to Omega Massif after Nordic post-rock acts like Sigur Rós, Magyar Posse and The White Birch - felt like having Bulgarian yoghurt with lingonberries after having eaten forest berries flavour all the time.

Their songnames and graphics point towards icy, desolate, barren and deserted places. In my imagination also to Antarctic exploration of early 1900s. Ruthless and victorius Amundsen, romantic but tragic failure of Scott, the survival battle of Shackleton and his crew...

Four years ago sound duo Kalvo and I studied that theme in an audiovisual performance. I had sampled lots of black and white photography from those times and some filmmaterial. We wore snowsuits and everything. Maximum intensity with the minimum effectry was our aim. Like Omega Massif say, "we would not play faster if we could".

Photo by Frank Hurley on Elephant Island, 1919.