Rating: 8.5

I have an oddly unironic obsession with playing solitaire. My fancy little PDA-cell phone has a built-in solitaire game, and I play it endlessly on the bus. I used to play online slot games at www.EasyMobileCasino.com but got into solitare when I switched my phone plan to one that didn’t include internet. It’s been a couple of months now that I have been playing on my commute to and from work, keeping a little note with my high scores. Anyway, I’ve found an interesting dynamic with the music that I choose to listen to while I play solitaire. I want it to be upbeat, but not obnoxious. Not background music, per se… more motivational, but not motivational like “Gonna Fly Now.” I’ve found that proper music gives me the best possible solitaire form.

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Rating: 8.2

“I think that’s the scrappiest version I’ve ever done of that in my life.”

That’s the line 21-year old Jamie Treays (aka Jamie T) uses to describe the album version of “Brand New Bass Guitar” to lead off his debut album, Panic Prevention, and I’d say that “scrappy” is an apt description of the album as a whole. He’s been compared to a number of seminal British musicians, from Joe Strummer to Mike Skinner, and those two influences in particular are apparent all over this album. He’s already been critically and commercially well-received over in the motherland, and is making moves in the States with his interesting blend of hip-hop (“So Lonely Was The Ballad”), spaz-dance-punk (“Operation”) and even a little scatting (“If You Got The Money”). The album flows seamlessly with vocal interludes all throughout and a very consistent tone, which might be what makes it so refreshing.

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