As 2011 has come to an end, we are taking a look back at some of our favorite posts of the year by our guest editors.
Exactly 11 years ago, Miles Zuniga was jetting off to Amsterdam with his Austin-based alt-rock outfit Fastball to try to put some touring muscle behind its latest release, The Harsh Light Of Day. Expectations were high, given the surprising mainstream success of 1998’s All The Pain Money Can Buy, which the band milked for almost two years. Fast-forward to today, and Zuniga has humbler aspirations for his first solo effort, These Ghosts Have Bones (33 1/3), a wrenchingly personal, fitfully melodic ode to the breakup of his 10-year marriage. Though Fastball is still very much a working entity, Ghosts’ quirky centerpiece, “Marfa Moonlight,” would’ve undoubtedly been a much different animal with bandmates Tony Scalzo and Joey Shuffield involved. The same goes for the rest of this inward-looking song cycle. Zuniga will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Zuniga: I have always loved this album. It puts me into a trance. It’s one long hypnotic tone poem. The personnel is impressive as well. John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. I lived in Berkeley, Calif., for a while and met lots of jazz musicians. I would sit and try to figure out the horn solos on this record. I could never play them with the same subtle nuance that these cats did. This is definitely one of the most romantic records I know of. If I had to pick five albums to be stranded on a deserted island, with this would be one of them. By the way, is there a turntable on that island?
Video after the jump.
