The warmth of the daytime seemed like a dream now. (Day 43)

Sometimes you find an album that's so addictive that you find it difficult to stop listening to it. You're worried that you're going to get burned out, but at the same time, everything else seems inadequate in comparison. The feeling passes eventually, but for that period of time, you feel like you've found exactly what you need in life. My current musical obsession is an independent release called *Subsume* by Cloudkicker. Evidently this guy sequences the drums and records all of the guitar and bass himself. The album is instrumentally sparse, but still very layered. It's pretty much exactly the kind of music that I look for--it's atmospheric, heavy, rhythmically varied, and feels... nostalgic.

There's a lot of folks that will tell you that guitar-driven music is going out of style and that in the future, electronics will take the forefront. Of course, in many ways it already has. Pop music tends to have its roots in dance, hip hop, and other forms of electronic music these days, but there's still plenty of guitar music out there, even in mainstream music. I love a lot of different kinds of music, but for me, nothing will ever resonate with me as much as the guitar. It has such a range of emotive tones to draw on, and every guitar/amp combo is different. Distorted guitars just push this button in my psyche that makes me want to nod my head.

Another thing that really resonates with me is heavy repetition. Some of my favorite pieces of music are built from simple riffs repeated many times with other elements slowly layered over them. It reminds me a little bit of jazz, where you begin with a simple motif and gradually expand on it in a linear fashion. That kind of stuff tickles my fancy a lot more than choruses and refrains. I dig jazz a lot, but even it doesn't get under my skin like heavier music does.