‘D’y'ever do something once and have such a vivid experience doing it that you do it again? And then again and again until it becomes a sort of ritual? I’m not talking about something big, like surviving a plane crash in the Andes and then meeting with your fellow survivors once a year for happy hour at Chili’s. Nothing like that. I’m talking about small, nonsensical, peculiar, the kind of ritual that only you, yourself in this wide, overpopulated planet ever do, the kind that seeks to reclaim, without ever succeeding, something of the magic that befell you the first time you did it?

I thought so, but I bet yours doesn’t involve The Fixx and a PSA jet.

Here’s mine. Every time I fly, whether it’s from LAX to Sydney or Denver to DC or down to the Whole Foods on the corner, I have to listen to “Woman On A Train” by The Fixx. That’s right. Man on a plane listening to “Woman On A Train.” Yeah, I said I was unique. Here’s the song:

The Fixx – “Woman On A Train”

It all goes back to a trip my brother and I took way back when I was fourteen. We boarded a plane bound from New Mexico to California to visit friends, and we did it alone, without parents. Not our first orphan flight, but the first for me since making it into a roiling adolescence, and since discovering the raw, sexy, seductive allure of music.

As the plane pushed off from the gate I had my Walkman in my hand–not an official Sony model; it was a Panasonic, I think–and a tape-recording on a Maxell C-45 of Phantoms by The Fixx scrolling insde on continuous auto-reverse infini-play. As the plane lifted off the ground, the song in question kicked in with its meticulous percussion, oleaginous synth pulse, ethereal guitars and deep, rolled-back bass. Synapses connected with a crackle of ozone.

The song has since reminded me of airports and flight and Mr. Pibb in very small plastic cups and the wonder and fear and amazement at the mystery of onrushing adulthood, whose harbingers were giddiness, confusion and the soul-crushing grip of first love.

Lyrics after the jump.

And by the way, the first word in this post is pronounced “JEV-er” (Did You Ever?)

On the web:
buy the song on iTunes (not this version, which is inexplicably unavailable)
official site
tour schedule (they’re coming to LA, folks)
Erlewine’s take on the album

Woman On A Train

Pictures chase across the ceiling
As I try to sleep at night
There’s a voice inside my darkness
Laughing at the life I’ve lost
She’s no girl on pills in limbo
She’s a woman on a train
With her senses sharpened by the warning cold
She brings me to memory
She flashes her lights, her mission bites
She flashes her lights
Across my desert mind (still no change in me)
(She’s) no girl on pills in limbo
She’s a woman on a train
She’s here…
The woman on a train…
And I will speak no words but the truth for her to hear
Hold her close… but never dare
(She’s) no girl on pills in limbo
She’s a woman on a train
She’s here
The woman on a train…
She will speak for us both
She will speak for us all
Till I learn to care…
She’ll override my best intention
Attack my weak deception
A friend for life and after
I’ll never catch her off her guard

Back in 1987 and thereabouts we didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have Allmusic or Pitchfork or Sixsquare. We just had the local record store. We’d go there every week and dig through the bins, see what was written on the board, flip through our favorite bands to see if by some chance Billy Squier had released something new that afternoon.

Usually, he hadn’t.

I kinda feel that way about the wait for something new from Siobhan Donaghy. I want something new, but aside from her well-publicized turn in Rent, the Intarwebs are notably quiet on her whereabouts. I’ve taken to popping round her official site on occasion, which, for all intents and purposes, is like dropping by the music store on a Tuesday afternoon.

I was tipped off to her stuff last year by some music blog or other (I’d thought it was Scissorkick, but I can’t find the post) and I checked it out with more than a little skepticism. Donaghy had been a Sugababe after all. On first listen, I liked the collection. It had a musky, hi-tech swirl to it that was different than I’d expected. But I only liked it. I didn’t love it.

Months later, I took it with me to Australia. High over the Pacific Ocean, the album began to reveal some more of its secrets, and I found that it gravitated towards the top of my playlists more and more. And there it has remained since, especially its opening cut and the three that close the album. There’s a dark majesty about Donaghy’s work. It’s pop with a dark side. It’s clever articulation of pop ideas that doesn’t insult the intelligence and, somehow, results in a clutch of tunes that stand up to repeated play.

It’s easiest to demonstrate this by offering up the album’s title track. “Ghosts,” is the final cut on the album, and for good reason. It’s a peculiar beast. The lyrics are indecipherable. The melody, intricate. The production, layered and dense. Yet there’s something fascinating about it. Check out the song in its entirety first:

Siobhan Donaghy – “Ghosts”

Yeah, yeah, I know. Those lyrics aren’t in English. Not forward English, anyway. So let’s drop it on the turntable and listen to some of it backwards:

excerpt: “Ghosts” in reverse

same excerpt, forwards

“She’s [doing something] to dresses. She can’t carry on. But her nimble fingers. Still feel the cold.”

I can’t discern what Little Dorrit’s doing to those dresses, but who cares? And though this line is, in fact, reversed in this excerpt, elsewhere in the track she pronounces the lyric in reverse. It’s all so David Lynch. And live? Well, she just sings it outright, all the way through: link to one blogger’s tongue-in-cheek attempt at lyric-spotting, and another link to a low-key live performance, which, in spite of her awkward stage presence and the distorted sound, still manages to kick ass.

All this fun from a single offbeat cut? And not even the strongest on the album, at that?

I’m ready for more please, Miss Donaghy. I just wanna see what’s next. No pressure. Take your time. But hurry. Seriously, I’m patient. I can wait.

Quick, K?

It’s too late in the game to bloviate about the film and its merits and/or flaws. I’m late to that particular party, and I’m certain I don’t get along with many of its guests. But since I gravitate to all things musical, I thought I’d share a bit of the score, which was once again put together by Reinhold Heil and Johnny Klimek, the kids responsible for Lola’s musical pulse. And in this film’s peculiar and oddly moving climax, their music is what, for me, keeps the film from tipping into an failed sort of lunacy.

Heil, Klimek and Tykwer – “The Perfume”

on the web: ebert’s praise for the film, Radar article on the composers

I’ve had help from Great Northern. This is one of those albums that I’ve had sitting around for months, knowing I had to give it a spin and see what the fuss was about. Since giving it a try at last, it’s become the “default disc,” that thing I put in when I don’t want to think about choosing music, but I want something excellent. And the hours, they are filled.

I’m not surprised that I find their brand of lush melancholia appealing. They have close ties with Earlimart, having actually intermingled with Espinoza and Co. in the way of membership (central band member Solon Bixler once played in that band.) I find that anything with close ties to Earlimart tends to have this gauzy aura of worshipfulness about it, like those foil Jesus paintings that heliotrope when you walk by. Maybe that’s just the effect of Rachel Stolte’s vocals, but whatever the case, I find “Trading Twilight For Daylight” lovely.

Great Northern – “Our Bleeding Hearts”

On The Web: allmusic, itunes, official site, myspace

I caught the season finale of Bones tonight. It’s weird having a new “show,” you know? I haven’t had a show since Buffy and Angel went off the air. So I suppose it’s fitting it’s another Boreanaz vehicle, but yeah, I thought I’d check it out. My friend, Ryan, thinks my fandom is insane, but as I’ve already laid out, there’s some stuff to dig about Bones. I still reserve my usual complaints about realism and transparent storytelling, but overall, it’s amusing stuff. The season finale was oddly disappointing, however. And yet somehow, it managed to make me love it by throwing a curve ball that I would have never predicted in a million years…

…or at least a month or two of serious guessing, anyway. Give me a moment to ‘splain.

From an objective standpoint it was just fine. A big, plot-heavy episode was what we expected from a lot of shows whose mid-sections were neatly excised by last Fall’s WGA strike, but this story, which involved the return of the “Gormagon Killer” (the show’s intermittent Boogie Man) was loaded with emotional potential that never quite pays off. That’s the sort of thing I can occasionally live with in a show I like; I’m always furiously rewriting these shows in my head as I watch them, anyway. But while the episode loitered in the lobby of greatness, it never took the elevator to the top floor. It never, as a way of comparison, came close to matching the average Buffy episode.

But a shocker in the final act was what stunned me into TV-love. The surprise came in the final act. No, it’s not the big character reveal about which the BonesBlogs are buzzing. This one comes just afterwards. A big action-y, revelatory scene unfolds. The FBI runs pell-mell in pursuit of a solid lead (for once without Dr. Brennan tagging along.) Guns out, tension rising, flashlights whipping about. Music playing…. And what music did they secure to go with it? Avenged Sevenfold, perhaps? Velvet Revolver? Hot Chip? She & Him? Nope, nope, nope…

Music spoiler after the jump.

Michael Hedges. “Aerial Boundaries.”

Billy Gottlieb is credited as Music Supervisor. If he’s really responsible for this, I hope he’s got a lot more of whatever it is he’s smoking.

Michael Hedges – “Aerial Boundaries”

on the web: live-blogging the finale, EW blog post, Hedges on YouTube, RS article about Hedges’ death

But it was worth it. Not only is the this edition a fine collection, it’s one of the most perfect mixes I’ve ever heard. Every cut, from Beth Orton to Carl Craig to Slick Rick is perfectly chosen, craftily sequenced and folded together into a warm, seamless musical trip. Gorgeous from beginning to end. Hands down, my own fave track among the collection is “Funky For You” by Deadbeats. It’s become my opening cut when I chance to spin records in public; a rolling, bass-heavy trip down a shady, chilled-out avenue.

I only bring it up now because it made the perennial trip to the forefront of my consciousness on a drive last night down to Redondo Beach. If you make the drive without traffic, the disc lasts from Los Feliz to Redondo Beach to Hollywood. With traffic, it’ll get you eighteen feet down the 110 Freeway. But what a fine eighteen feet it will be.

Deadbeats – “Funky For You”

on the web: amazon, allmusic, “funky”, original version

Had I heard Narrow Stairs beforehand, I don’t know that I would have been so cavalier about DCFC’s set. While their last album was so jangly and well-intentioned, so full of cotton candy, this new one is a different beast entirely. It’s darker, it’s leaner, it’s more likely to lurk in alleyways than frolic in danedelion patches. Take “Your New Twin Sized Bed” for example, which kicks off with quiet stings and Ben Gibbard’s reclusive, spectral voice sounding not entirely unlike something Nineties-era Manchester might have given us, but then kicks up an insistent, orchestral flavored jam. Maybe it’s because I’ve been all over Saturdays=Youth lately, but it sounds like M83 without all the cinema.

It’s not a complex tune, but if this is the sort of stuff they were belting out on the Coachella stage sixteen days ago, I’m gonna have to take the ol’ DeLorean up to 88, if you know what I mean.

Death Cab For Cutie – “Your New Twin Sized Bed”

on the web: amazon, itunes, official site, allmusic (Andrew Leahey’s review)

As usual, Elbow has put together a collection of tunes that run the gamut between lush, mournful ballads to crunchy, energetic rockers. But there’s always one tune that grabs me from the outset and becomes the base camp for exploration of the rest of the album. On Leaders of the Free World it was, “An Imagined Affair,” and before that (Cast Of Thousands) was “I’ve Got Your Number.” This time around, it’s “Mirrorball.”

Check it out:

Elbow – “Mirrorball”

on the Web: allmusic, amazon, pitchfork

And speaking of predictable (you’re welcome for the marvelous segue) that’s something that the first listen through 59.59, the debut album by Sian Alice Group just plain isn’t. SAG is Rupert Clervaux and Ben Crook, a progressive-minded duo that had the good sense to bring vocalist Sian Ahern into the fold. Adding a few more musicians turned them into a “group” in the proper sense of the word. The album is a disarming collection of tunes that flow from one to the next yet manage to stand out from one another in a way that’s adventurous and, well, unpredictable.

It’s tough to find a representative track on 59.59, but “Murder” does a good job of hinting at the album’s overall mood. The piano is front and center at first, but true to their process, the other musicians sneak in, one by one until Sian’s vocals step in and wrap themselves in the warm musical tones her bandmates have just spun. Check it out. I’d be curious to know what you think. The whole album is worth picking up, so get thee to a music shoppe. I’ll check in with you when I get back from the Beast (read “East Bay.”)

Sian Alice Group – “Murder”

on the Web: allmusic, myspace, pitchfork (7.7), itunes, amazon

Anyway, first on the list this week is Australia’s Midnight Juggernauts. Their official website references Air and ELO in its breathless bio on the group. And you know what? That’s about accurate. I’ve spun the debut album three or four times now and it’s got that danceable spacey quality that ELO was so good at, with sparkly, space-age synths and a nifty 124 bpm dance groove. Check out “Tombstone” to see what I mean.

Midnight Juggernauts – “Tombstone”

on the web: official site, ‘shadows’ video