A new episode of the Codex is up (17), and you’ll find it for download here.

A new episode of the Codex (16) is up, and you can download it and check out the playlist here. And it looks like we’ll be recording a new episode of Radio OK Fred this week, so stay tuned for that too.

It feels like it’s been a long time since the last episode of the Codex, but that’s just because the last two episodes were recorded so close together. This week’s episode ends with a track by Broadcast, to mark last week’s unfortunate passing of lead singer Trish Keenan — strangely enough, it was a track I had already selected to play on this episode.

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

Codex 15 (39.7MB)

1. The Magnetic Fields – “I Don’t Believe in You”
2. M.I.A. – “Internet Connection (Huoratron Rum Aid Rmx)”
3. Justice – “The Party (feat. Uffie)”
4. The Forms – “Fire to the Ground (feat. Matt Berninger)”
5. Asobi Seksu – “Trails (Deerhoof Remix)”
6. Belle & Sebastian – “The Stars of Track and Field”
7. Junip – “Always (Prefuse 73 Remix)”
8. Peaches – “Downtown”
9. Wavves – “Mutant”
10. Broadcast – “Pendulum”

I know I recorded episode 13 just a couple of days ago, but I was suddenly in the mood to record a new episode of the Codex, and so here we are. It follows a theme I first visited last year, where I play tracks taken from albums that start with a particular latter — last time it was “A,” this time it’s “B.”

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

Codex 14 (35.3MB)

1. Unrest – “Winona Ryder (XY Version)”
2. Digiki – “Wikifi”
3. TTC – “Dans le club”
4. Sebadoh – “Drama Mine”
5. Pavement – “Embassy Row”
6. Kan Takahiko – “Blow”
7. Comesta Yaegashi – “Sanpo – Marunouchi no Nichiyoubi”
8. Marxy – “Intro To”
9. Mice Parade – “Ground as Cold as Common”
10. Pixies – “Is She Weird”

Well, I wanted this to be the “lucky” episode 13 of the Codex, but it took me quite a few tries to get the recording done because of glitches. But here it is, the first Codex of the year, and it also includes a Codex Coda courtesy of Chris Palmieri, the founder and head of the Tokyo-based design studio AQ.

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

Codex 13 (46MB)

1. M.I.A. – “Vicki Leekx Mixtape”
2. Toro y Moi – “Still Sound”
3. Mark Ronson & The Business Intl – “The Bike Song (The View Version)”
4. Homo Duplex – “Out of Touch”
5. Julie Doiron – “Nice to Come Home”
6. Lykke Li – “Get Some (Beck Remix)”
7. RJD2 – “The Glow (Paolo Remix)”
8. Said the Whale – “Last Tree Standing”
9. The Inbreds – “Prince”

Codex Coda 02 by Chris Palmieri

1. Kid Sister – “Pro Nails (Rusko Remix)”
2. Wendy Carlos – “Air on a G String”
3. Ladyhawke – “My Delirium”

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”

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”

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”

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”

Just a note to say that Codex, my weekly music podcast, is now listed in the iTunes Store, which means that you can download episodes from there, as well as subscribe — here’s the magic link.

And speaking of the show, the playlist for the next episode is all done — it’s going to be a themed episode, first in a series — and you’ll also soon see the new December color combo for the cover.

It’s a new episode of Codex (04), my weekly music podcast, recorded on a late Saturday night (past midnight), not that this piece of information has anything to do with anything.

Below is the playlist for the show, as well as a link for download, and you can also subscribe to the RSS feed so as not to miss any episodes (and apologies, but it seems that the feed didn’t update properly last week, but it’s now fixed).

Codex 04 (33.8MB)

1. Röyksopp – “Eple”
2. Daft Punk – “Derezzed”
3. Tricky – “Murder Weapon”
4. Bear Hands – “Crime Pays”
5. Familjen – “Det Var Jag”
6. The Wombats – “Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)”
7. Magic Kids – “Superball”
8. Bell – “Dialtone”
9. Freezepop – “Science Genius Girl”
10. Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett) – “Do You Love”