On my way back to Berlin to pick up my stuff and say some farewells. That will be fun, and a little bit sad too. In less than a week from now I’ll be back in Perth. I’m pretty excited about that. I’m pretty excited about a lot of things at the moment, actually.

I’ve spent just over two weeks in Israel and Jordan, eating hummus, meeting relatives and generally just having an amazing time. I won’t go into details here, suffice to say that it was eye-opening. Ask me about it next week. Basically it involved a lot of tea, camels, desert, heat, difficult border crossings and fast driving. Fun stuff.

Still dealing with a pretty amazing hangover. Wine, Whiskey, Guinness and Arak – a lot of it was had last night. A good night, but I’m suffering for it. I’ve pushed a lot of Turkish coffee into my body today, but even that has limits to its effectiveness.

Currently listening to The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. God it’s good.

In true music nerd fashion, I’ve placed my favourite 20 albums of the decade in biographical order. For the most part, this matches up with chronological order, too.

Although I am undoubtedly a victim of recency bias, this selection is top heavy with records from the second half of the decade largely because I listened to more new music (and more music in general) in the second half.

So here we are:

PJ Harvey: Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
There’s something about the production of this album that gets me every time. I can’t put my finger on it, since it’s pretty much a straight down the line record with what sounds a lot like a session band. But that something is definitely there in the production, and I credit this album with getting me interested in how music sounds, as opposed to just song structure.

The songs, by the way, are fantastic. I’m not going to pretend to be a PJ Harvey expert (or even a massive fan, for that matter), but I think that there’s a golden period (often all too brief) in some musicians careers where they’re no longer amateur record-makers, but haven’t yet gotten stale (see also: Pearl Jam from 1994 – 1998), and this is definitely where Polly Jean finds herself on this album. The fact that it has guest vocals from my musician-of-the-decade is just icing on the cake.

Radiohead – Kid A
It seems hilarious to me now that this album actually upset people when it was released. I can remember arguing with people in High School (wow – a decade is a really long time, huh?), trying to convince them that this was actually music. It seems like the musical equivalent of the debate over whether photography was art. This happened only nine years ago, remember. I came down firmly on the side of this being an amazing album, partly based on a teenage desire to appear avant guarde, but also because this is a spellbindingly beautiful record.

I don’t remember too much of what I was doing when I first started listening to Kid A, but I do know that it’s one of those records that I’ve never stopped listening to. In fact, it’s only in recent months that I’m fully appreciating its genius. I’ve said it before, but five minutes and nine seconds into “How to Disappear Completely” marks the high water mark of Western civilisation. This could be my favourite album of all time.

Dave McCormack – Candy
God this is such a charming record. If I were a girl, it’s the sort of record I’d want my boyfriend to be. Funny, smart, a little bit rebellious (but not too much), and just always good to have around. The sort of album that will tell your parents to get fucked, but somehow not have them get upset. I used to think that it trailed off towards the end, but I now realise that I just didn’t get it yet. See – it really is the perfect man – it’s even got room for growth!

I love this album for another reason too. It was a very, very large part of the soundtrack to the best summer of my life – a time when I had little money, a fucking horrible job, and yet life was about as perfect as I can ever remember it.

Every time I hear the opening riff to “Inner West” I remember that summer and smile, and I know two other people who do too.

LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
This might not be as sophisticated as Sound of Silver (or 45:33, for that matter), but it holds a special place in my heart. I credit this record, along with Kid A, as being one that helped me get over that ridiculous notion that music had to be made with “real” instruments and, thus, exponentially expanding my musical life.

This is also a great, dirty party record, from a time in my life when I was just starting to get into partying dirty.

Spoon – Gimme Fiction
Not a lot to say about this record. It’s just a quality album that I always want to play and so always do.

The Shins – Oh Inverted World/Chutes Too Narrow
These records, on the other hand, I can write digital forests about. I’ve lumped them together because I got into them at the same time and weirdly enough can never remember which is which. But man, when I fell for The Shins I fell hard. These guys were literally all I chose to listen to for three months. You know when people say the word literally and they don’t really mean it. Well I really mean it – for a three-month period in 2004 this was the only music I played.

These records were the soundtrack to a great spring, as well as getting me through my first breakup, travelling with me for months across a European winter and generally just teaching me how beautifully fucked up is this world.

If I ever again ride the 98 or 99 buses between UWA and North Fremantle, I will be unable to think of anything but The Shins.

Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas
I still don’t know what this album has taught me. I still haven’t listened to all of it properly (I get about 75 percent of the way through and usually stop out of emotional exhaustion). But whatever it has taught me, I’m sure it’s beautifully and true, and I’m sure that I’m a better person as a result of hearing this album.

Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
I had this on my iPod for ages before I listened to it. I was backpacking through Europe at the time and had listened to everything else to the point of exhaustion (this was 2004 remember – it was only a 2GB Nano). On a train ride from Copenhagen to Berlin, I though “what the hell” and hit play. At the end of the album, I went back to the first song and hit play again. I listened to this album about 10 times in a row on an amazing train journey between the best two cities in the world (for part of the way the train was in a boat – ask me about it some time).

I think that, looking back on it, part of the reason this record had such an impact on me because it made me an explorer. Here was a brilliant record that had been sitting under my nose for months and I had only found it now. This record was a lost Amazon tribe, life on Mars and Atlantis all rolled into one. It made me excited for life’s little surprises!

Oh, and it sounds great, too.

Drones – Gala Mill
I remember that I was sitting at the front desk of RTR when Dave Cutbush handed me this CD and said “you have to listen to this.” I remember taking home and playing it really loud. I remember being blown away, right from the start.

Not only was this definitely the best album of the year, in my opinion it is the best Australian album ever. It’s dark and dirty and relentlessly bleak, but still exposes that fragility and humanity that ever person, no matter how evil or fucked up, possesses. This album is the perfect metaphor for why I love people, as well as why I love music.

When I say that this is the best Australian album ever, I don’t just mean that it’s the best album recorded in Australia. It’s not just the references to colonial history that make this an “Australian” record. It neither apes American or British style nor tries too hard to be Australian (see also, Hilltop Hoods, Steve Irwin). I don’t know exactly why it sums up Australia to me, but I know that I want to live in an Australia that makes albums like this.

Danger Doom – The Mouse and The Mask
Amazingly, this is the first Hip Hop record I bought. Within six months, half my (admittedly small) record collection was Hip Hop. I give this album the credit for that.

I also give it credit for being funny, a lot of fun, and just generally the sort of record I almost always want to play. It’s not flawless (it is a Hip Hop record, after all) and the skits are annoying, but it’s still the best album of the decade in its genre.

Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy
Oooh boy! If The Shins were my puppy-love musical relationship of the decade, then Okkervil River were the real thing. I remember first hearing them when this album was already out (“The President’s Dead” was getting a lot of airplay, although it’s not on this album). They were playing at the Rosemount on a Sunday, I went along, didn’t realise the early start time and walked in just as they were finishing playing it (the only song I knew at that stage). Despite not knowing a single remaining song, it is still one of the best concerts I’ve seen. You know when you meet someone at, say, a party and leave knowing you’re in love? That was me that night.

I don’t actually listen to this record too much these days. It’s one of those records you save for when you really need it. I’ve needed it quite a few times over that last few years. It’s always been there for me, and it’s comforting to know that it always will.

Shearwater – Pala Santo
This band is like Okkervil River’s hot sister, a little bit more abstract and just a little bit weirder. Thankfully there’s no such thing as monogamy in the musical world.

Peter Bjorn and John – Writer’s Block
Firstly, I used to hate that “Young Folks” (aka – the whistling song) as much as everyone else. Now I don’t mind it, but I’ve still heard it about 12 million times too many. The rest of this album, however, is cleverly written, brilliantly produced and very nicely executed indeed.
Another album that was there when I needed it. A couple of years after it came out I was working in a job I didn’t like very much, and was generally pretty devoid of direction. I used to go for long walks along the river during my lunch break and would invariably chuck this album on. It cheered me up. It wasn’t vastly sophisticated; it just reminded me that I wasn’t the only one that was sad. And that was enough.

Thom Yorke – The Eraser
Mr Yorke makes his third and penultimate appearance on this list. This album has got a lot of “good but not great” comments from critics, which I think are totally unfair. The problem is that Radiohead always shoot for the moon and invariably succeed. This is a much more modest record, but deliberately so. It’s not meant to change the world, it’s not meant to blow speakers and change people’s perception of music. It’s a record that has much more modest goals from someone who has nothing to prove, and it succeeds perfectly. If I have grandkids, I really hope they like this one, because I’m going to be playing it to them a lot.

Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
The first thing I’m going to do when I have a turntable again is go out and buy every Silver Jews record (including this one again, because I tragically scratched the shit out of it when I stood on it). This was a sad album for a very happy year in my life that was punctuated by a few brief moments of extreme sadness. I didn’t need this album often, but when I did it saved my life.

Akron/Family – Love Is Simple
Another album that warmed the bench for months before I finally gave it a shot. One of those records where, as a musician, you don’t know what to think. I was simultaneously depressed (I know that I can never do anything this complex and brilliant) and inspired (I know that I want to at least try).

This was the soundtrack to a breakup, as well as a lot of walking. I still don’t understand this record, so I’m not going to try to explain it. All I understand is that it’s unquestionably brilliant.

The National – Boxer
As far as albums that are good for stewing in emotions go, this one is right up there. I listened to this on repeat when I first got to Berlin and I was walking around and exploring. Yep, I did some serious thinking to this song.

She and Him – Volume One
A simple album that makes me, like all great music, feel happy and sad at the same time. It’s also the soundtrack to me walking around Berlin for hours, but if The National had me sinking into the marsh of self-pity a little bit too much, this record got me out. And gave me a nice glass of freshly squeezed lemonade.

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Want to hear something depressing? The frontman for Fleet Foxes is 23 years old.

Radiohead – In Rainbows
Like all Radiohead albums since Amnesiac, I got into this one about a year after it was released. I love the fact that I’ve thought that the last three albums by this band were duds, only to grow to love each more than the last over time. As far as I’m concerned, Radiohead have proved themselves such musical Einsteins, that when I don’t like something they’ve released, I now assume that I’m doing something wrong, rather than them.

This record isn’t the soundtrack to anything that’s happened yet; it’s the soundtrack to my imagined future. I want to get fucked up and dance to “Bodysnatchers”, kiss people to “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, and I want “Videotape” played at my funeral.

Note: This is Just an Allegory

I just came back from a very weird party at a friend’s place. Half-way through, some kind of rule seemed to develop that you weren’t allowed to speak in your native language (be it German, English, Turkish, French or Spanish). I settled on a weird hybrid of mainly German but with little bits of French when I got stuck, which actually seemed to work quite well. One girl could speak only Japanese, so for me to say anything complicated to her, I had to speak English to a German who spoke German to another Japanese girl who translated that into Japanese.

Long story short, I can now say “Purple-Monkey-Dishwasher” in Japanese.

Tonight I also discovered that I can bluff really well in German poker games, which anyone who has played against me in English will know is not the usual state of affairs.

I’m fascinated by the perception of language in Europe. In Australia, you never really have a need to speak in a language other than English, so learning another language just isn’t important. Here, a second language isn’t just a way of showing off or appearing cultured (or, say, completely demolishing a Texas Hold ‘Em table by going all in with a pair of threes), it seems to be something people are just expected to have. I’d like to say that learning another language leads to greater tolerance, understanding and peace between cultures, but the last few thousand years of European history are against me on that one.

Learning a second language will, however, stop you being one of those annoying people that thinks that talking really loudly to Japanese tourists will make them understand you. And that’s something we can all be thankful for.

UHT Milk - tastes like shit

Seriously, this shit is everywhere here. I don’t get it. Sure, it has its place (if, say, you’re going on a six month commando mission behind enemy lines and don’t want to be without a latte), but I think we can safely assume that Berlin should have some fairly decent supply lines. I don’t think we need milk that won’t go off until January 2014.

I’m perhaps being a little unfair to Berlin; It’s all over Europe (Spain is another particularly bad offender). So next time someone is crapping on about Australia being a cultural backwater and Europe being where it’s at culture-wise, just tell them: “good luck getting your fair trade, organic, non-genetically modified latte in Berlin, motherfucker”.

Then again, they’d probably have soy milk anyway.

Meanwhile, I finished my first week of German class and am now supposed to know about 200 words (meaning I can only have meaningful conversations with three-year-olds and footballers). Weirdly, this seems to have made me forget some English (I no longer follow the “I before E” rule and I keep saying things like “I don’t speak well German”). Seems like kind of a fair trade though.

Berlin’s an incredibly easy city to make friends in. I keep meeting people’s friends and then their friends, etc, etc. For example, last night I went to a party with the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. Somehow this isn’t as weird as it sounds.

I’m contemplating going to see Bill Callahan on Tuesday. Have any of you seen him live? Is it worth 16 Euros?

I start my German classes on Monday, so I’m starting to really feel like a resident.

I awoke today, determine to do something slightly more highbrow than drink at a bar inspired by (and no doubt severely infringing the copyright of) my favourite film of all time. However, I found myself struck down with mountains of phlegm. Through absolutely no fault of the White Russians, I am out of action, hopefully developing an immunity to Swine Flu (when it mutates next year, all you fuckers are dead, but not me).

So instead, I re-read Slaughterhouse Five, in honour of my location, and also because it’s a damned fine read.

I’ve always thought blogs are pretty self-absorbed and egotistical affairs. Why start one now? Well, I’ve just moved to Berlin, and thought this would be a good way of keeping all you non-Berliner friends up-to-date with what I’m doing. Also, I’m a pretty self-absorbed and egotistical person.

To get you all up to speed, I’ve been in Berlin a little over two weeks. I’ve managed to get myself a very cool apartment, which I move into at the start of August. It’s in the wonderful neighborhood of Kreuzberg which contains a lot of Turkish immigrants and, as a result, the best kebabs I’ve ever had. I’ve also met a lot of very cool people, been to a lot of amazing bars, seen some really cool music (Prefuse 73, and a brilliant little avante-garde electronic band by the name of Groupshow, whom I heartily recommend). I’ve drunk badly, eaten badly, and generally packed so much life into the last couple of weeks that I’ve broken myself a little bit.

At the moment, I’m killing time in a hostel until my apartment is ready. I’m going to take it easy for the next week and try to repair my broken body; I’ll eat well, drink lots of water. Fitter, happier, and all that.

I’ll try and update this thing fairly regularly. I love this city so much, so I think I’m going to have a lot to write about…