One more reflection. This time it is from the Brooklyn Heights. More photos tomorrow.

Two things I photograph often: reflections and patterns. Since it is the first “photo” entry I chose the image which represents both trends. Plus it opens a small series of photos from the trip to Italy in April of this year. The picture was taken inside St. Peter Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano aka Saint Peter’s Basilica.

As much as I hate charts, awards and competitions, here is my promised list of top 20 CDs of 2006. I decided not to leave any comments to the list, but let anybody who happens to see it either check this great music out or ask me why I chose any of these particular albums. All of them were released in 2006 except one, which is not officially out yet. The list is in alphabetical order. Please feel free to post your own “best of 2006″ in the comments,

• Agusti Fernandez / Barry Guy / Ramon Lopez “Aurora” (Maya)




• Barry Adamson “Stranger On The Sofa” (Central Control)




• Derek Bailey “To Play: The Blemish Sessions” (Samadhisound)




• Ergo “Quality Anatomechanical Music Since 2005″ (Actuator)




• Erik Friedlander And Teho Teardo “Giorni Rubati” (Bip-Hop)




• Fra De Varme Lande “Fra De Varme Lande” (ILK)




• Golem “Fresh Off Boat” (JDub)




• Jazkamer “Metal Music Machine” (Smalltown Supernoise)




• John Zorn “Astronome” / “Moonchild” (Tzadik)




• John Zorn / Uri Caine “Moloch: Book of Angels vol.6″ (Tzadik)




• John Zorn / The Cracow Klezmer Band “Balan: Book Of Angels Vol. 05″ (Tzadik)




• Loren Connors “Night Through: Singles And Collected Works 1976-2004″ (Family Vineyard)




• Matthew Shipp “One” (Thirsty Ear)




• Ototmo Yoshihide, Bill Laswell, Yoshida Tatsuya “Episome” (Tzadik)




• Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe “Kobe Yee!!” (Crab Apple)




• The Clarinets “The Clarinets” (Skirl)




• Tin Hat “The Sad Machinary Of Spring” (Hannibal)




• Tom Waits “Orphans” (ANTI-)




• Trio BraamDeJoodeVatcher “Change This Song” (Bik Bent Braam)




• Wayne Horvitz “Way Out East” (Songlines)

For quite some time I was going to start a web project which was supposed to help me reach the following goals:

1. improve English skills;




2. improve web programming skills;




3. provide an option to show individual photos I like both of music (from DOWNTOWNMUSIC.NET) and no music matter (from what now became SONICBEET.COM // photo gallery);




4. occasionally write about topics which do not fit my personal and music blogs in Russian;




5. host easy to install and maintain small independent web sites for myself and friends.

That project was obviously a blog/site management system with flexible and customizable features.

It took me a year of struggle with myself about what, how and - the most important - when am I going to create that thing, but finally I gave up. Instead of pushing it even farther back, first I built SONICBEET.COM // photo gallery and processed and uploaded to it images from the last six months, and now I am starting this blog using WordPress engine. In the near future I will try to post at least every once in a while, starting with a few photos and the list of top 20 CDs from last year. Then we will see…