These two releases, Godspeed You Black Emperor!'s Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven and The For Carnation's The For Carnation, received well over half of the vote (out of a total of 16 choices). Between the two, Godspeed You Black Emperor! was the clear winner with 34% of the vote; The For Carnation receiving 22%. Thanks to all who voted. Okay, it was pretty obvious Godspeed You Black Emperor! was going to win, but the full results of the poll reveal a couple surprises in how the rest of the pack finished.

But 2000 is over, baby; we are now all about 2000 and 1. Wait, aren't most of these releases we reviewed still from 2000? Oh well, maybe there is still room for a little bit of teary eyed reminiscing about the year that just passed, about 25 reviews worth of reminiscing. And maybe one review of a release from 2001.

One of the most productive musicians of 2000 was cornetist Rob Mazurek, who was a part of two Chicago Underground releases (one Duo and one Trio) and an Isotope 217 release. Damn, he even found time to show up on the latest Calexico album. Our own Dave Christensen caught up with Mazurek during a recent tour to talk to him about his many groups (or, rather, the many variants of his 1 or 2 groups), the recent Isotope bus crash, his hatred of classification, and what exactly the hell a cornet is.

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Look for our next issue on February 9th, just in time for all your Valentine's Day gift giving needs. Thanks for calling.