I came back home from a night of drinking, and you’d think I’d just want to take it easy, but no, I was in the mood to do an episode of the Codex, and so here you have it. Since it’s the last episode of the year, I felt like it didn’t really make sense to play new music, so instead I cover some of my favorite tracks from film soundtracks of the past few years.

You can download the episode below, and find the playlist, or also subscribe to an RSS feed so as not to miss any future episode. The show is in the iTunes Store as well.

Codex 12 (36.6MB)

1. Sex Bob-omb – “We Are Sex Bob-omb”
2. Sondre Lerche – “Family Theme”
3. Wreckless Eric – “Whole Wide World”
4. Mulatu Astatke – “Yekerme Sew”
5. David Holmes – “165 Million Plus Interest (Into) The Round Up”
6. Stephin Merritt – “Epitaph for My Heart”
7. Karen O and the Kids – “All Is Love”
8. A R Rahman – “Paper Planes (DFA Remix)”
9. The Breeders – “Bang On”
10. Meaghan Smith – “Here Comes Your Man”

Not that it’s really worth mentioning, but I updated my Cafe Pause mini-site, taking away the blog and simply keeping it as an info page — basically, somewhere to link to when I mention the cafe in a post (since the cafe’s own site is in Japanese). I used the lovely illustration Luis created for the Cafe Pause Poster series as the header.

And let me take this opportunity to clear up a few things, as a lot of people seem to be confused by my relationship with Cafe Pause. No, I am not the owner of the cafe, I’m just good friends with the owner and staff, which is why I’ve been able to produce events and host PauseTalk there. I was managing the gallery space, but don’t really do so anymore — although I’ll still help out if a foreigner wants to rent out the space for a show.

As the year winds down to a close, it’s always the time where I start to re-think everything I’m doing, and what I should be doing in the new year. After all, it was around this time that I was prepping for the launch of SNOW Magazine (it went live towards the end of January), and now I need to re-evaluate what the point of the site (or platform) is, and where it should be going in 2011. I already have some strong ideas on this, and I’m going to take the next week or two to properly plan this out and figure out what is best.

This “re-thinking” mode also affects every other personal project I have online, in some way or another. For example, the site I have up for Cafe Pause and my involvement there. As evidenced by the level of updates to it, it doesn’t make sense to keep that going as a blog, and I’m certainly going to modify it to make it more static, more of a pointer for info instead of news — and to be honest, I just haven’t been as active there as I have in past years, due to lack of time, and a focus on other things.

And even new projects, like Codex, which was launched less than two months ago. I’m pretty happy with the way it’s working, but I’m sure I’ll be tweaking things here and there. I’m having an absolute blast creating new episodes, and I’ll probably look to expand on what I’m doing with it.

So just a little post to say that I do like when this time of the year comes up, as it’s a good excuse to really re-evaluate and come up with new ideas to get the new year rolling at a good and energetic pace.

It’s Christmas Eve, and so what better time to record a new episode of the Codex (11). It’s my “favorite tracks of 2010″ episode, based on what I listed in my recent “Favorite Media of 2010” post. As I explain in the show, it’s impossible for me to really say what my absolute favorite tracks of the year were, so this is mostly based on my iTunes play count. I hope you enjoy it, and just a reminder that if you’re in the mood for some Christmas music on the Eve or on the day itself, there’s last week’s Christmas episode to download — and if you liked Michael Bojkowski‘s recent Codex Coda contribution, he’s put up a great winter podcast episode as well, the “Antimix Special: Snowbound.”

The link to download the episode is below, as well as the playlist, or you can subscribe to an RSS feed of the show so as not to miss any future episode — it’s in the iTunes Store too.

Codex 11 (46.2MB)

1. The Books – “A Cold Freezin’ Night”
2. Mark Ronson and the Business Intl – “Bang Bang Bang (feat. Q-Tip and MNDR)”
3. Royksopp – “Happy Up Here”
4. Black Francis – “Threshold Apprehension”
5. Caribou – “Odessa”
6. Wavves – “King of the Beach”
7. Arcade Fire – “Rococo”
8. Four Tet – “Circling”
9. Stereolab – “Everybody’s Weird Except Me”
10. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – “Pieces Form the Whole”

As you get towards the end of the year, it’s usually a time to reassess the way you do some things, and one thing I’ve decided to do is to take my personal Facebook account and make it just that, personal. For the past year or so I’ve just been adding whoever sends me a request — I imagine after I’m discovered through this site — and it’s gotten to a point where my Facebook account is practically unusable now.

What I’ve done instead is create a new JeanSnow.net page on Facebook, which I’ve also added as the “Facebook” link that appears at the end of every post on this site. A few years ago I had created a JEANSNOW.NET group, which I’ve never done anything with, but decided to get rid of it as I think it makes more sense to go as a “page” and not a “group” — on Facebook, SNOW Magazine and The Magaziner each have pages, but PauseTalk is a group, which I think makes sense.

So apologies in advance if you send me a friend request and I don’t approve it — from now on I’ll be limiting interaction with my personal account to people I actually know.

As I mentioned yesterday when I posted episode 9 of the Codex, it’s only after I was done that I thought it would be a good idea to do a Christmas episode, and I wanted to get it done as soon as possible. Here we are then, an extra-sized holiday episode with 20 yuletide tunes that I hope make for a Christmas soundtrack that’s a bit different from what you tend to hear everywhere.

As I said on the show, a lot of the tracks were found thanks to a great holiday music round-up post on Pitchfork. Here are also links to some of the compilations I mentioned, that you can download for free: The Christmas Gig, Ho! Ho! Ho! Canada Deux, and A Familyre Christmas Volume 3. Also, you can still download the Christmas episode of Radio OK Fred (15) we did last year (me, along with my co-hosts Yoshi and Ay2).

You’ll find the link to download the episode below, along with the complete playlist, and you can subscribe to an RSS feed so as not to miss any future episode. The show is on the iTunes Store too.

Codex 10 (61.8MB)

1. James Kochalka Superstar – “Christmas in Dimension X”
2. Pine*AM – “Snow! Snow!”
3. Blazer Force – “Electronic Santa”
4. Sufjan Stevens – “Put the Lights on the Tree”
5. Low – “Taking Down the Tree”
6. Bishop Allen – “You’ll Never Find My Christmas”
7. Best Coast/Wavves – “Got Something for You”
8. Coconut Records – “It’s Christmas”
9. Summer Camp – “Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses Cover)”
10. Los Campesinos! – “Kindle a Flame in Her Heart”
11. Dressy Bessy – “Hopped Up on Xmas”
12. Dent May – “Holiday Face”
13. By Divine Right – “Mall Santa”
14. The Zolas – “Snow”
15. Paper Lions – “Jingle Bells”
16. The Mountains & The Trees – “My Favourite Sweater (Happy Holidays)”
17. Ben + Vesper – “Planet Witness”
18. Rachel and Jon Galloway – “Glory”
19. Joshua Stamper – “To Us a Child of Hope Is Born”
20. Halcali – “Strawberry Chips”

For some reason I’ve always avoided doing year-end lists of favorite things — I don’t really know why — but I just felt like doing one this year, and so here goes. Now, of course, this is all based on what I’ve actually seen/played/used/listened to, and so consider this a personal compilation of the favorite things I experienced this year in the world of media (it’s not a “best of” thing) — and note that it is limited to things that were released in 2010. Two categories that may be conspicuous by their absence are books and magazines — I just don’t feel like I read enough books to justify a proper list, and for magazines, I don’t have five truly favorites that come to mind.

So here then is my highly unscientific, truly subjective list of favorite media obsessions of 2010. Each category includes five items in alphabetical order (I think it’s silly to rank them in order), and I’ve occasionally included a few honorable mentions, things that I really wanted to have in those favorite fives.

FAVORITE GAMES
As you’ll see, my favorite genre tends to be RPGs (with a strong emphasis on action RPGs), and then racing games too. I could probably have done a separate downloadable game category as well, but decided to just put them all together.

• Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
• Fallout: New Vegas
• Mass Effect 2
• Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
  
• Red Dead Redemption
• Honorable Mentions: Costume Quest, Fable III, Limbo, Heavy Rain, Split/Second
  

FAVORITE IPAD APPS
There are many more apps that I really like, but these are the ones that I use the most, that I have in my dock. I decided to only list iPad apps and not iPhone apps (same for games), since I do really spend a lot more time on my iPad, and my iPhone is just something I pull out when I’m bored waiting somewhere (most used apps on that would be Twitter, Instapaper, Camera, and listening to podcasts).

• Cloudreaders
• Instapaper
• NYTimes
• Reeder
• Twitter
• Honorable Mentions: Air Video

FAVORITE IPAD GAMES
I’ve kept this to real iPad versions of games only — I did play a hell of a lot of DoDonPachi Resurrection on my iPad, but it’s really just an iPhone release.

• Carcassonne
• Infinity Blade
• Plants vs. Zombies HD
• Robot Unicorn Attack HD
• Word with Friends
• Honorable Mentions: Highborn HD, Small Worlds, Space Invaders Infinity Gene, Canabalt, Puzzle Agent HD
  

FAVORITE TV SHOWS
This year was absolutely amazing for TV, and you’ll see that my tastes are definitely on the cable series side of things (Community is the only network show to be included) — that fact that you can be truly mature is one thing, and the shorter seasons (and so more focused storylines) is another.

• Eastbound & Down
• Dexter
• Mad Men
• Sons of Anarchy
• True Blood
• Honorable Mentions: Community, Treme, The Walking Dead, Louie, How to Make It in America, Bored to Death
  

FAVORITE MOVIES
This was difficult because I obviously haven’t seen a ton of movies that came out in theaters in recent months in North America, so my list could honestly have included movies that came out towards the end of 2009 as well. I know the two Mesrine films originally came out in France in 2008, but I felt like I could include them since they came out in North America this year.

• Cyrus
• Inception
• Mesrine: Killer Instinct/Mesrine: Public Enemy #1
• The American
• The Ghost Writer
• Honorable Mentions: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Kick-Ass, The Social Network, Exit Through the Exit Shop
  

FAVORITE ALBUMS
Music is also very difficult, since I listen to so much of it, and to such a variety — which is one of the reasons I started Codex — but I think I was still able to come up with a list of favorites, in part based on the “most played” count in iTunes.

• Record Collection (Mark Ronson & The Business Intl)
• Swim (Caribou)
• There Is Love in You (Four Tet)
• The Suburbs (The Arcade Fire)
• The Way Out (The Books)
• Honorable Mentions: The Social Network Soundtrack (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross), King of the Beach (Wavves), Not Music (Stereolab)

FAVORITE TRACKS
Again, these are mostly based on the “most played” count in iTunes.

• “A Cold Freezin’ Night” (The Books)
• “Bang Bang Bang (feat. Q-Tip and MNDR)” (Mark Ronson & The Business Intl)
• “Happy Up Here” (Royksopp)
• “Threshold Apprehension” (Black Francis)
• “Odessa” (Caribou)
• Honorable Mentions: “King of the Beach” (Wavves), “Rococo” (The Arcade Fire)

FAVORITE COMICS
This was the hardest category for me, because I read A LOT of comics, and so it was hard to narrow it down to just five — and these five are basically the things that I could remember really liking — and the reason I don’t even include any honorable mentions is because it would be ridiculously long.

• Justice League: Generation Lost
• Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit
• Scott Pilgrim
• Sweet Tooth
• The Unwritten

Following last week’s special two-parter (episodes 7 and 8), Codex is back this week with a regular episode. After I was done recording it occurred to me that maybe I should have done a Christmas episode, and so since I’d like to get that out at least a few days before the C-day, I’ll try and record one this weekend.

The link to download the episode is below, along with the playlist, and you can also subscribe to an RSS feed so as not to miss any episodes — the show is on the iTunes Store too.

Codex 09 (38.2MB)

1. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – “40 Day Dream”
2. The Lowbrows – “Blue”
3. Junior Senior – “Take My Time”
4. Kid Cudi – “Revofev”
5. Deerhunter – “Coronado”
6. Duck Sauce – “Barbara Streisand”
7. Djako – “Devil Train”
8. Halcali – “Tandem (Mutable Chromosome Remix)”
9. Halcali – “Peek-a-Boo (DJ Mitsu the Beats Remix)”
10. Momus – “The Thunderclown”

Hey, you lazy blogger, aren’t you doing anything?

If you think I’ve suddenly dropped everything, I would remind you to check (and often) my other little web publications that do get a lot of love throughout the week: SNOW Magazine and The Magaziner. It’s amazing the amount of attention the latter has gotten — more than any personal project I’ve launched so far, and I gotta say it feels good. The Magaziner will also be involved in the launch of a very cool project in January that I’m excited about — can’t say anything yet, but trust me, if you’re at all into this whole digital magazines thing, then you’ll love it. And Gym Class Magazine has offered me a regular “The Magaziner” column, starting from the next issue (out in February).

If it’s more Codex you want, fret not, as I’ll be recording a new episode tonight or tomorrow. I absolutely love doing these, and so huge thanks to everyone for the great feedback — it’s very much appreciated.

The title to this post simply refers to the amazing poses my dog performs when he’s jolly and jumping around during play — he would make any kung-fu master proud.

Here is Codex 08, which is part 2 of of my special session with special guest PMKFA (Micke Thorsby)– make sure to download part 1, as they really go both together. The two shows were recorded over dinner at Micke’s home — with plenty of wine — and so apologies if the sound is a bit low at times, as Micke moves around the room preparing things (it sounded fine on our headphones). As promised during the show, I’ll be posting the recipes of what we had to eat, as well as a few photos to give you a better idea of what our dinner looked like.

Below is the link to the episode, as well as the complete playlist, and you can also subscribe to the RSS feed so as not to miss any future episode — the show is on the iTunes Store too.

Codex 08 (58.1MB)

1. Mr. Lexx – “Big Up (True Friend)”
2. Chan Dizzy – “Go Hard an Dun Mix”
3. Major Lazer – “Halo”
4. Twin of Twins – “Leggo Mi Head – Raw”
5. Kollosus – “Breakin’ Bread (Phaseone Remix)”
6. Max B – “Tattoos on Her Ass”
7. Leftside – “Mi Tyad – Grandpa”
8. Marcus Price and Carli – “Mat Bira Kvinnor Weed”
9. The Dream – “Kellys 12 Play”
10. Sleigh Bells – “Tell ‘Em”

Yes, it was just last night that I uploaded episode 6 of the Codex, but here we are the following day with not one, but two new episodes, or rather a show in two parts featuring special guest graphic designer PMKFA (Micke Thorsby). We recorded over at Micke’s home as he prepared dinner for both of us — over a a lot of wine — and that would explain why Micke’s voice is often low (it sounded good when we tested over headphones). You can download part 2 here (both episodes really belong together), and I’ll eventually be posting some photos of the session, as well as the recipes of what we ate.

Below is the link to the episode, as well as the playlist, and you can also subscribe to the RSS feed so as not to miss any future episodes — it’s on the iTunes Store too.

Codex 07 (61.3MB)

1. Babe Rainbow – “UP by OFWGFTA”
2. Golden Birthday – “Exposed”
3. Marcus Price – “Surf (Hedmark Remix)”
4. Teen Daze – “Four More Years”
5. Small Black – “Despicable Dogs (Washed Out Remix)”
6. Star Slinger – “Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins Rework)”
7. Salem – “King Night”
8. How to Dress Well – “Decisions (Feat. Yuksel Arslan)”
9. Cam’ron – “Yo Momma On Ya (Feat. Snoop Dogg & Jim Jones)”
10. Paper Route Gangstaz – “Bama Gettin’ Money (Feat. Kristmas, Mali Boi & Big P.O.P.E.)

This week’s episode of Codex (06) comes a bit early as I wanted to get a regular show in the can before heading to the home of PMKFA (graphic designer Micke Thorsby) tomorrow to record a special episode in which he’ll be the selector. This episode also includes the very first Codex Coda, which as I explained before, are short sets by people I’ve invited to contribute. This first one is by London-based art director/graphic designer Michael Bojkowski — keep an eye also on Michael’s Linefeed site, as that’s where he posts new episodes of his Antimix podcast.

You’ll find the link to download the show below, along with the complete playlist, and you can also subscribe to an RSS feed so as not to miss any future episode — the show is on the iTunes Store too.

Codex 06 (48.3MB)

1. Arling & Cameron – “Open”
2. Quincy Jones – “It’s My Party (Feat. Amy Winehouse)”
3. Brasstronaut – “Hearts Trompet”
4. Matt & Kim – “Cameras (Mike D Remix)”
5. Lykke Li – “Get Some (Mike D Remix)”
6. Stereolab – “Two Finger Symphony”
7. The Streets – “Going Through Hell (Diplo Remix)”
8. Yacht – “Psychic City (Classixx Remix)”
9. Wave Machines – “Keep the Lights On”

Codex Coda 01 by Michael Bojkowski

1. Lene Lovich – “I Think We’re Alone Now (Japanese Version)”
2. The Zombies – “Come on Time”
3. Cotton Candy – “Fantastic & Spectacular”

I just posted something on SNOW Magazine about Momus‘ latest podcast, in which he talks about his new life in Osaka — he has recently relocated to the city. Momus used to do a lot of these talk-only podcasts, often recording them as he was walking around a city (Tokyo, New York, Berlin) describing the things he was experiencing. I really loved these “virtual tours,” and it even inspired me to do a few of my own.

Now in this new one — which he says “may” turn into a series, which I hope so — he mentions me, saying how he used to follow my blog back in the day, and he says how it’s interesting that when you look at pretty much all of the tweeting I do these days — which is admittedly a lot — that there is barely ever any mention of anything Japan-related. Now one thing that should be obvious is that I’ve moved all of my Japan-related art/design/culture content to SNOW Magazine, and the accompanying Twitter account, but there is something to what he says.

Momus states that it’s possible that after a foreigner has been here for long enough — I’ve been here for 10+ years — he starts losing interest in the things around him, and I can’t entirely disagree. I’m certainly no longer intrigued or surprised by the differences between Japan and other cultures. These have become routine for me. But I will admit that over the years my interests have evolved, and I’ve taken a bigger interest in things that lie outside of this country — you could probably count recent projects I’ve launched, like Codex and The Magaziner, as a reflection of this.

There was certainly a long period time where I was so obsessed and in love with all of the things I was seeing and experiencing in Japan that yes, it pretty much made up everything I was absorbing in terms of daily culture. But the past few years have seen me re-connecting with what’s happening in the rest of the world, and it has changed my perspective on things. Now, this is not to say that I don’t genuinely like what I cover on SNOW Magazine — I really do — but it’s also something I produce as a “project” now. As a whole, I’m just not as excited or intrigued by Japanese culture (meaning in art, design, culture, and more) as I used to be. Now whether this is due to me turning jaded or because of a general decline in what is being produced on the cultural landscape, that’s a topic for another post.

Does this mean I lose my Tokyo Boy crown?

Just a reminder in case you’re wondering whether there’s a PauseTalk tomorrow night (Monday, December 6) — no, there isn’t. As I mentioned in my write-up following the previous edition, we’re taking a two-month break (December/January), and will be back February 7.

It was Saturday night, around 2:00, which of course (I guess) was a perfect time to record a new episode of Codex (5). For this episode I decided to use a theme, and it’s a rather simple one: A selection of tacks taken from albums with titles that start with the letter “A” — I explain why on the show.

You’ll find the link to download below, as well as the playlist, and you can also subscribe to the RSS feed so as not to miss any episodes. Note that Codex is now also listed in the iTunes Store.

Codex 05 (42.5MB)

1. Flin Flon – “Ukraina”
2. France Galle – “Les yeux bleus”
3. Delicatessen Mixture – “Aguas de Agosto (Sunaga t’ Experience)”
4. Guided by Voices – “My Valuable Hunting Knife”
5. Matthew Sweet – “Time Capsule”
6. Sketch Show – “Wonderful to Me”
7. Taichi – “RPM”
8. Radiohead – “Pyramid Song”
9. Sufjan Stevens – “Dear Mr Supercomputer”
10. Melissa Auf des Maur – “Real a Lie”