The Van Pelt

If one album had to be selected for “Album of the Year” for 2011 it would have to be The Van Pelt's Sultan of Sentiment. Despite buying and heavily listening to Idaho's You Were a Dick, Explosions in the Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care and other fine but forgetable albums none of them were listened to as much, played as often as this record from 1998.

Since hearing it in 2009 and declaring it to be the best, well one of the best albums that I had ever heard. It is on par with Galaxie 500's On Fire but not better than.

Last year I would go months where it was the album I'd listen to on the bus into work and the bus home from work. Strangely this doesn't seem obsessive to me because I was listening to two or three other albums every day. It was just a habbit I developed.

Now I know why, the album is just over 37 minutes long my daily bus rides were just over 30 minutes long. So if I skipped one of two tracks each play (as I did, favouring no one track over the others) I would be able to listen to the album in its entireity from the moment I got on the bus to the moment I got off of it.

Interesting.