Some Cities

Sometimes a CD just nudges you: peeks out from the slits of a plastic case, calling to your fingertips to pull it out and relieve it from its suffocation, so it can breathe heavily...loudly...through the speakers, layering its idiosyncrasies along the interior; slipping out beneath the hiss from the crack in the window until it envelops your inside and outside world.

Today that cd was Doves, Some Cities.

Doves have a very push-and-pull signature style that has always kept me coming back for mega-doses; but, at the same time, has always caught me pulling myself from the submersion, abruptly, by tapping the 'stop' button and leaving the music to collect electronic dust for a while.

It's a strange relationship.

I found it very interesting today that this was the album silently singing to me from the plastic with all of my current looming decisions/opportunities waiting to be put into some sort of timeline, in a place defined by a five digit code starting with a 0,1,9 or 7--In some city that will nestle me in its chest, and call itself home.

The title and the lyrics speak of houses of alienation, contemplation, elation, crushes, time travel, emotional roller coasters, construction, attachements...and of course, love and loss.

As most of my thoughts these days center around where I, for lack of a better word, long for, it seems appropriate that the cd calling to me would BE, and cause, an introspective heady swirl of emotions that can be best defined by the rich and varying aesthetics of Motown, post-punk, Brit-pop and a cross-country road trip with definitively different, ongoing, breathtaking scenery.

So driving to Beverly today, I found myself back in love and administering the mega Doves dose of this synchronistic piece of sonic joy...and with that, I felt all of the above as highlighted by recent day's chats.....about colors and some cities.

How your soul plugs into one city, verse another.

When you need to just break... or maybe give in... let go.
Letting go is an art form in the industry of construction.
(I may have mentioned this before.)

Anyway, you get it.

I will continue... w my head on the verge of exploding simultaneously with a sythesized beat.

So many thoughts and comments have been filling the time between my breaths about the allure of some cities. How despite what good and bad things you can say about a place, how some cities just simply stay under your skin. Make your being become topsy turvy at just the thought of being there...or the thoughts of (still) being away from there.

The title track's lyrics say it well:

"Roads that come together
My memory never severs
The love'll never sever for me

Can't I make you see....

Some cities crush
Some cities heal
Some cities laugh
While other cities steal"

This album has been there and here.
It's tasted the aftermath of experience in all seasons.
The stark contrasting of a beginning and an end.

The introduction and rising nostalgia, attached to the first time I heard this CD, melded into this synergistic rush of emotion, as the drum beats marked and burst into the chorus. Tracks one to four are so well fortified that each note, each bundle of words, wrap themselves tightly around my head until they sink in--surreptitiously setting my mind to autopilot in the discourse of melodies. The brit rock bouncy versus, the tease of a surf rock riff, the haunting piano dirges all charge. This album is like a smokey eye: pretty, dark and flecked with an irresistible, undeniable sparkle beaming through the shadows.

The feel of this album is that you are embarking on a journey--the individual composition being the aestectic that defines when and where. It works in some places on each album, but in others it just throws off the momentum. It is not to say that the songs, individually, are not good, in fact, some do take you on a journey without you even being completely aware, but other tracks are just trying too hard- Which I think explains my "strange" relationship. It's as if I get locked in and then it releases me and I can't go back.

In the case of today though, the album carried this vehicular mind-stage, 65 miles per hour to my Father's house, with me barely remembering how I got there. Although I wouldn't endorse such unsafe things, I think it was a job well done nonetheless, and that it sparked notions and rises that I needed to be on the surface.



...... ..... ... .... .... ... .... ... ...... .. ... ......... . . . . . . . . . ...... ............



P.S. I like this video