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Most artists or bands today barely manage three or four good songs on an album, so it’s quite a feat when a musician puts out a full EP of six songs that are each as good as the next and impossible to stop listening to. Especially when that musician is someone who has a degree in composition and orchestration, and lists Chopin as one of her influences.

I haven’t had a favorite album in a few months, but I like this one a lot. If you’re into good music you should definitely give Brooke Waggoner a listen. The EP “Fresh Pair of Eyes” is 100% free as a download from her web site right now, so you have no excuse not to. Her style is sort of piano folk/singer-songwriter with classical influences and an incredible skill and sense of music and sonority. She can go from some slow quiet notes and speed up and build to an expansive full-orchestra climax in the span of a single song, and her lyrics are intelligent and interesting to match. The music feels extremely natural and easy to listen to and matches so well with what she’s trying to convey, like she was somehow able to pull the emotions out of her heart and place them straight into your ears.

Give it a listen at her myspace page or go to her site to grab the totally free download.

I haven’t found an album like this in years. I’ve been listening to it and nothing else for the last week and it still hasn’t gotten old, which is no small feat for me. Maybe this is just my style, a perfect mix of folk guitar and harmonized vocals, something like Iron & Wine mixed with Joni Mitchell and Rilo Kiley, but actually together, well orchestrated, and more modern and very listenable, none of them annoying in the slightest. The songs are tight, perfectly arranged and played, and memorable, with beautiful poetic lyrics that shift between somewhat pessimistic and hopefully and honestly optimistic. From the first to the last track, there’s not a single bad one. The only one I skip sometimes is the sad one

If you’re looking for an album to listen to, think about, and listen to again and again, this is the one! Hear some tracks at their web site.

Went to Fry’s electronics today expecting to buy a replacement for my stolen camera, but their salespeople are so inept that I decided they didn’t deserve my money (“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t turn them on for you”—NO SALE FOR YOU). Instead I wandered into their speaker room (as I usually do at some point) and spotted a pair of these on the top shelf with a red reduced price tag…

Cambridge Sound Works M50 Bookshelf Speakers

They were store display models on sale at a discount, $95.67 for the pair. I compared them to some Polk speakers of similar size that were on sale for $40 a pair, but the Cambridge’s were much more lively and accurate, with a noticably better soundstage even in the horrible little listening room (that’s just speaker nerd speak for “where you can hear the sound coming from”—with good speakers, you don’t want to hear the sound coming from the speakers; you don’t want to hear the speakers at all, just the music). Definitely worthy of their $299 list price, and at $95, I couldn’t pass them up.

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First, a note: I’m loving this server!! Blistering speed and stability! Woo.

So I bought these computer speakers a while back just so my computer could make sound, and recently I’ve been fed up with their horrible sound quality. It’s just a cheap 2.1 channel system from Creative, so I didn’t really expect much, but still, I was disappointed. On the off chance that it might sound better, I decided to switch out its two crappy little speakers with my KLH 911B bookshelf speakers (using the amplifier built into the Creative subwoofer).

Needless to say, the quality was still horrible. No stereo separation, bad frequency response, flat sound… the amplifier was probably finely (or unfinely) tuned to the speakers that came with it. With that in mind, I ordered the Sonic Impact T-Amp from Thinkgeek ($30) to improve the setup.

This little amp is simply amazing. ‘Nuff said. Read on for more thoughts.

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Props to Rhapsody.com, Real’s new through-the-web version of their music service, for supporting Firefox not only at a minimum level, but completely. The player that streams the music from the site? Yeah, it’s a Firefox plugin. Good job guys. The instructions for setting it up were also just about perfect, getting every detail of the Firefox UI exactly right. I love this extention to the service, which should let me play music from several places I couldn’t before (ahem—the computer science labs), making the limitation of streaming a little more bearable.

I’ve been a Rhapsody member for about 2 months, by the way, thanks to UC Berkeley’s deal with them. Three bucks a month for unlimited streaming of any music in the world is definitely worth it, even if Rhapsody’s UI could use some improvement when compared to iTunes.

My point: I’m paying this much just to discover and listen to new music, and it’s fulfilling exactly that—which is all I used to use P2P networks for. I still buy CDs, and I always will. Just gotta have my raw bits that I can use as I see fit.

Oh music labels, when will you trust your consumers? Or rather, when will you realize that trust will be lucrative?

Because life is better with music.

1. José Gonzalez – Veneer: A silky mix of deftly picked guitar and a perfect low-key voice. I heard the track “Heartbeats” (a cover of a song by The Knife) on this Sony commercial and had to pick up the hard-to-find CD. The whole album lives up to it, and I’m surprised it hasn’t gathered more attention.

2. Tristan Prettyman – t w e n t y t h r e e: Yes, her name is Tristan, and yes the spaces are supposed to be in the title. This album is a perfect set of folk-pop love songs from a songwriter and a voice you could easily call a female Jason Mraz (and I mean that as a compliment). He even sings on one track, and it’s pretty good. Plus her name is Tristan, so how could I resist?

3. Matt Pond PA - Several Arrows Later: I’m not sure what the PA stands for, but this album is all around good. Reminds me a little of Josh Rouse’s older albums, or Keane with a guitar but different. It’s energetic and calming and comfortable at the same time, with great lyrics to boot.

4. Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures: Okay, where is all the hype for this amazing album? Let me start it if there is none. Sort of like Arcade Fire’s “Funeral,” but with just the good tracks, and with better lyrics and music. Seriously, I’m a musician—some of the chordal structures (especially in “Bird on a Wire”) are stunning; I mean, when was the last time you heard a major 9 in a rock song? I love it! I was about to list my other favorite tracks before I realized it was 8 of 11 total. This whole album has great energy, but at the same time it’s not overdone or artsy; it’s easy to listen to, catchy at times, thoughtful, musical, etc. etc. Just go listen to it already.

I felt the most ecstatic joy a few minutes ago, and I just have to explain it. Forgive my verbosity.

I have had a song stuck in my head for as long as I can remember. I’m not kidding. I had a melody and a lyric and a general feeling all bunched up in this little memory and I had no idea where it came from or when or who sang it.

I remembered this: “School books, in fancy colors, la-la la la la laaa la la-la…” and the melody that went along with it. I even wrote down the notes several times so I wouldn’t forget, and I thought it might have been Alison Krauss, hence, not only have I listened to every song Alison Krauss has ever sung (ever), I have also e-mailed and sent letters to her several times over the last six or seven years with the written notes and what lyrics I can remember, just to see if she knew the song. I never heard back, of course.

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Death Cab for Cutie released their new album “Plans” today, and if you have any doubts, may I dispel them quickly. This is an excellent album worthy of buying.

I’ve only listened to it twice through, but it’s already growing on me. I don’t want to rave about it yet because I really should listen to it more, but it’s definately good. My only complaints are one song that I don’t particularly like, and that it’s a little short. Other than that, there’s a lot of stuff that really makes you think about all the important things, and it all sounds great if you’d rather not think. In combination, it works even better.

And they sold out to Atlantic. But honestly, who cares? They’re making good music; let them be rewarded.