Monday, January 19, 2009

I played the living hell out of Herbert's "Harmonise" in 2006, but for some reason by year's end I didn't want to even think about it. That might have to do with the circumstances during which I played it most--enduring a lot of NYC-based difficulty--but in any case I screwed up by not putting it in my Top 10. On the same album is a song called "Moving Like a Train," but "Harmonise" is the chug I go back for. It never stops building, never stops cresting, coming on like a mystery unraveling, every swirling tunelet buttressing the others, building toward the out-of-nowhere "You are the world/I am your people" like a white rainbow spreading over a city. And the lyrics are basically a mockery of I'm-lost-without-you love songwriting, the tune isn't complete without you, she's describing a self-absorbed dick that may or may not be Matthew Herbert himself (he wrote 'em, right?), all your back-story and Steely Dan echoes fulfilled. The used 12-inch I found recently will likely get played every week at Havana.