I've got these two albums merged together because they were albums which simultaneously marked my introduction to the indie world. These were also the first two bands where I really started to venture beyond my roots and explore the music world in general. It happens when you're a 14-year-old living in the middle of nowhere.

Tapestry is weirdly out of place in my list of seminal/important albums, but I consider it such because I was pretty much raised on it. According to my mom, if she didn't put it on when I went to bed as a toddler, I would raise hell. Tapestry is practically the first music I ever remember hearing. I don't listen to it a whole lot today, but I still appreciate it. Plus, nostalgia value.

Here's the only artist that I'll give two places on my list. Generally, a musician that's important to me will have a single album that's particularly significant, but Tori is sort of a unique case. The two albums here are listed for similar reasons to Tapestry. I heard a lot of these two albums as a kid because my mom was a massive Tori fan in the 90's. Again, lots of nostalgia value here.

MHTRTC is a fun one for me because, at the time, it was really different from the other music I was listening to. This was essentially the first electronic album I ever fully embraced and took it completely in. I didn't even think of it at the time as being my foray into the electronic world. I just thought it was good music, period.

At the time I found out about him, the idea of loop pedaling being the basis for an entire music act was totally foreign to me. I always pictured Owen as this wild-eyed bohemian mastering the art of obscure production effects off in the woods somewhere, sitting in a shack with his violin while sipping tea and generally being a classy bastard writing beautifully nerdy baroque-pop melodies. The titular track also oddly ties in with one of the albums for my #3.

I had the group recommended to me in '08 by some internet friends of mine that thought I might take to their style (and how). Up until Skeletal Lamping's release, I spent my time digging furiously through their discography and consuming virtually everything I could find, starting from the back and working my way forward (that wasn't a conscious decision, it just sort of happened that way). I was reasonably prepped by the time SL's release date rolled around, and I'd spent a decent amount of time hyping myself for it. Then it came out, and the relationship was very appropriately love-hate. Truth be told, I think this album was my true test of loyalty to the band, in a weird sort of way. Almost three years later, and my allegiances are maintained, while Skeletal Lamping has been embraced by me almost in its entirety.

The Rite combines in me both a reasonable sense of nostalgia and a testing of the waters in the world of 20th century composition. I was absolutely obsessed with Fantasia as a kid, and the dinosaur sequence was one of my favorite parts of the entire movie. Curiosity seized me one day several years ago, and I obtained a copy of the original piece... without the Disney butcherings. After hours upon hours of concentrated listening and navigating, I had been sucked in past the point of return. More importantly than my music taste, The Rite really affected my outlook on the tonality in my own work, to mention nothing of how it complemented my own preferences on time and rhythm.

I think these two albums are equally influential to me for what are really the same reasons. They both did the same things for me at different times in my life. In middle school, I was isolated and socially awkward, and my brother introduced me to this fun little band called The Mars Volta. He thew them in with a whole slew of ska, emo, and indie groups (none of which stuck) he got familiar with through his friends. De-Loused was my only album. Several years later, I was an apathetic (in the literal sense) and vaguely misanthropic high schooler separated from the world by a long-term grounding because of some poor class performance. I didn't have any sort of mp3 player, and my computer had been taken from me. As it turned out, Amputechture was the only album I had left at the time committed to physical form. Cue several months of highly intensive bonding with the album.

Out of all the items on my list, this one is the most recent. It really is what amounted to be an awesome high school graduation present. It was totally unintentional, too. An accompanist of mine from my last high school competition gave me several CDs at her Easter brunch. I think her main intent was to have me listen to some of the Poulenc that was conjoined to Turangalîla on the album, which I did at first (the final movement of the Concert champêtre still ranks high on my list of favorites). Admittedly, Turangalîla was also intimidating as hell. I skimmed it initially, and I just couldn't seem to penetrate it. I got some more Messiaen works, namely, his entire Catalogue d'Oiseaux. I took to a few pieces and then returned to Turangalîla, and it seemed like I could actually find an entry point. While I'm still gradually creeping my way through the entire symphony in an attempt to digest all of it (I think it might be a long time before that happens, lol), I hold it in very high regards for being not only my entry point to Messiaen, who is now my favorite composer, but my entry point to virtually all of the 20th century compositional literature I found afterward.

Here's the really big one for me, on a personal level. I consider Boys for Pele to be the result of my first conscious searching. This was the first album I felt like I could really say was "mine". This was not the same Tori I remembered as a little kid. To me, she was darker, somber, and matured. It seemed totally appropriate for how I saw myself at the time. Ultimately, I think one of the most important things this album did for me was instigate a domino effect. A huge chunk of my preferences and musical traits eventually trace back, in some convoluted way, to this album's influences on me.