I want “On The Radio” by Regina Spektor, to be played at my funeral.

I could claim that it’s the purely reflective aspect of the song – how it picks out tiny, lovely, poignant details out of a life, and presents them as the memorable, heartwarming moments that they actually are – as worth remembering.

Or I could suggest that the peculiar and satisfying blend of traditionally beautiful and classical voice, with idiosyncratic delivery and contemporary lyrics, that Spektor represents is something that I want played to add those elements to the service where people are supposed to remember me, as if those things will somehow rub off on their memories of me.

But actually, I think it’s the reference to the hearse being driven through the screaming crowd. It’s a retarded combination of really, painfully obvious and literal – it’s a hearse, you see? You see? – and joyfully macabre that I think would be surreally amusing played at a funeral, and I don’t know anybody else who’d be willing to have the song played at theirs, so I guess I have to have it. Even if it means I only get my kicks on this score from beyond the grave.

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But something he said, about a girl playing the song to him, triggered off a couple of different thought processes, and I ended up pretty much spamming his comments with them.

The song that came to mind, after some meandering, was “Creep” by Radiohead.

It’s not a particularly sophisticated choice. The song is almost designed to resonate with a certain sort of boy in a certain sort of period of his life. But, you know, it is what it is. So few things work the way they are supposed to by design, and this particular one totally does. At least for me, in the perfect storm I found myself in in 1993.

I’ll let “Comments Nick” explain, in an only-mildly-edited-from-the-comment-I-just-left form. Just assume everything after the jump is in quotation marks:

I’m about four or five years out of synch with [Kieron's] story – my sixth-form girl-songs were all jangly regional accents and Hammond Organ and just typing it reminds me of a couple of formative nights at the Sixth Form night in the Sleaford Rugby Club Sixth Form, dancing sweaty with the awkward girl whose more-easily-cute older sister was at Uni in Salford. (If you feel you can stand to hear about that girl/music interface, go here.)

Madder Rose came along after the next world-changing indie-girl had come and gone. She threw my world into uproar in my first year at university, to a soundtrack of Cud and a whole other wave of English accents set to guitar.

The coda to this, of course, is one of sensitive-boy torment. We started dating early in 93, and being a canny lass, she’d become obsessed with this mostly overlooked album called Pablo Honey. In particular, she got a kick out of a song called “Creep”. She was a dorky girl, and seemed to get a lot of cheerful mileage out of putting herself in the singer’s shoes, as she bounced along her single bed, shouting the chorus into my face.

The timing of the end of the relationship was one of those perfect times when everything aligns and the universe seems to be telling you something. “Creep” got its second wind and widespread success, and I suddenly got to hear it every time I went to a nightclub and tried to drink the melodrama of the departed girl out of my head.

And of course, that chorus didn’t seem so cute and fuzzy when it wasn’t her singing it in her underwear. You know the lyrics. Everybody knows the lyrics. The song quickly went from being a knowing, winking, smiling bit of self-loathing from a girl in a room where she was comfortable and safe and in control, to being the sullen, self-important and passive-aggressive piece of bitter loneliness and unrequited infatuation that it really always had been. And you always got to listen to it while in a room full of girls-gone-hostile, or so it seemed in my jilted state.

This sounds a little more heartfelt than I mean it to, though. The interesting thing about recounting this story is that in the years inbetween, I’d forgotten that there had been a time when, with a little context, this song had actually and easily been an oddly cute in-joke between two awkward, fond kids. It’s a strange sort of smile that that brings, but it’s mine.

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day 01 – your favorite song
day 02 – your least favorite song
day 03 – a song that makes you happy
day 04 – a song that makes you sad
day 05 – a song that reminds you of someone
day 06 – a song that reminds of you of somewhere
day 07 – a song that reminds you of a certain event
day 08 – a song that you know all the words to
day 09 – a song that you can dance to
day 10 – a song that makes you fall asleep
day 11 – a song from your favorite band
day 12 – a song from a band you hate
day 13 – a song that is a guilty pleasure
day 14 – a song that no one would expect you to love
day 15 – a song that describes you
day 16 – a song that you used to love but now hate
day 17 – a song that you hear often on the radio
day 18 – a song that you wish you heard on the radio
day 19 – a song from your favorite album
day 20 – a song that you listen to when you’re angry
day 21 – a song that you listen to when you’re happy
day 22 – a song that you listen to when you’re sad
day 23 – a song that you want to play at your wedding
day 24 – a song that you want to play at your funeral
day 25 – a song that makes you laugh
day 26 – a song that you can play on an instrument
day 27 – a song that you wish you could play
day 28 – a song that makes you feel guilty
day 29 – a song from your childhood
day 30 – your favorite song at this time last year

I think Mr Gillen is on the right track taking these out of order, and also linking to them as he does them. We’ll bloody see, won’t we?

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Okay, that last thing isn’t going to happen. But I will have awesome gifts and stuff. Girl One is great at that sort of thing.

So, anyway, if for some peculiar reason you are on the internet today, and have wandered over here, I guess I should provide something for you.

How about some festive songs? That sounds good, huh?

Sleighride To Heck – James Kochalka

I love the chaos of this one as it all starts to fall apart. One of those voices in the background is Moby, by the way. See, he isn’t a completely humourless fuck.

Christmas Time In Hell – Satan from South Park

Because the South Park guys actually write damn good songs. The attention to detail in this one is the thing. Also, how damn jaunty it is, considering.

I’ve Got A Boner For X-Mas – Nerf Herder

Okay, so “Fairytale Of New York” IS Christmas, but this is my hands down favourite song that isn’t about New York. Or Fairytales. This song is how I feel about Christmas right flipping now.

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This week, I’m in a slightly romantic mood, so I figured it was a good time for unusual duets. Though, of course, it being me, they aren’t necessarily the most perky of songs in some cases.

Miss Otis Regrets/Just One Of Those Things – Kirsty MacColl/The Pogues

It’s almost Christmas, which is, of course, the perfect time for Kirsty MacColl and the Pogues. But “Fairytale Of New York” is a bit of an obvious choice, and you’ll all have heard it a million times. And besides, this is a track that you just don’t hear often enough.

“Red Hot & Blue” was an AIDs charity album of Cole Porter covers released in 1990, and for some reason, rather than duet on one song, MacColl and the Pogues opted to instead do a medley of two. This works out pretty well for me, actually, because I had heard the latter, but the former – which probably sparked off my love of murder ballads – was all new to me, and MacColl makes it tragic and beautiful.

This might even be the point at which I really started to appreciate the Pogues by themselves. I always loved “Fairytale”, but it’s fair to say that that song works best because it’s a pure and fluid call/answer between two very different voices. This one still gets some extra strength from the contrast, but it’s sharper, and it’s not just between MacColl and MacGowan – the two songs performed are very different from each other, too. Somehow, it works perfectly, with each song complementing the other, and afterwards I properly appreciated what the Pogues actually do.

Let’s Do It – Joan Jett/Paul Westerberg

“Tank Girl” was not as bad as people said it was. I’m almost certain about this. At the time I loved the damn thing, despite the terrible response it got. But on reflection, this might just have been a formative response to Naomi Watts… mmm… Naomi Watts!

But whether it was a good or bad or average movie or not, the soundtrack – which I think was heavily influenced by the “Judgment Night” and “Natural Born Killers” soundtracks – is pretty damn fun. It features Portishead, Ice T, Bjork… as well as a bit of Bush and Hole (snarf).

It’s also got this inspired cover of another Cole Porter song. Porter was a truly great songwriter, and it stands up to reinterpretation beautifully. I don’t know Joan Jett’s stuff all that well, and I get the feeling Paul Westerberg might be one of those guys whose normal output would just annoy me.

But this is such a playful song, and this version adds a layer of mischief and pop-rock for good measure.

You Don’t Know Me – Ben Folds featuring Regina Spektor

It isn’t going to be a surprise to anyone who has spent more than five minutes on this site that I really have the Spektor love. I’m not sure whether it’s been as clear, but I also have a man-crush on Ben Folds.

This song, from Folds’ most recent album, is a perfect merging of the duo’s vocal strengths, but it’s also one of those misleading little song confections – the tempo and delivery is persistently perky, but the subject matter is another well-observed and pragmatic song about the relationship condition from Folds.

On first listen, I was a little disappointed that it was more Folds than Spektor. Because I am an idiot. It’s a perfect little song, cute and realistic in equal measures, and you must listen to it until you love it.

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I’ve loved They Might Be Giants for such a long time, but it’s a peculiar kind of love. They are the loyal, cute and intelligent friend that I forget about from time to time, but when something reminds me of them, I have to seek them out instantly, nervously concerned that they won’t remember me. A quick search reveals that so much has changed in their lives – like a new album that I knew nothing about. I wonder how much they’ll have changed.

Then, of course, it turns out that they do remember me. And even though they’ve got more stories to tell, we easily fall into the same old conversations.

Oh, god, They Might Be Giants are my Cookie.

Anyway, people know the band for a lot of things that the band aren’t. It isn’t their fault, or the band’s, really. The closest they ever got to fame were with two songs that could easily be described as novelty hits, and that’s the sort of peculiar celebrity that can kill an otherwise long-lived group.

In fact, those two songs – “Birdhouse In Your Soul” and “Istanbul” – though characteristic of the band’s output musically, and a lot of fun, aren’t typical TMBG tracks, though Birdhouse comes close. If all of their output had that same crowd-pleasing infectious appeal, and that was all they had going for them, I would have loved them for the length of the glorious summer of 1990, but I don’t know if they’d still resonate with me as much as they do today.

The reason 1990 was glorious… and then horrible, was that that was the year when I went out with Jessie for two months. It was a strange relationship, in which our personalities seemed to gel as perfectly as is possible for two 18 year olds, but we never quite got the other stuff right – you know, the stuff that is generally easier for randy teenagers to get up to.

There’s a story there. Perhaps not a very interesting one to most. But inevitably I fucked it up. And then she started seeing someone jerky and Alpha male, and my Sixth Form experience broke in two. He used to sit on the school bus next to me – because we were both in the Sixth Form – and say things like:

Him: You got Jessie flowers once, didn’t you?
Me: Hurm. Yeh.
Him: Yeah, she really liked that. She mentioned it.
Me (suddenly attentive): Hm? Yeah?
Him: Oh, yeah. So I bought her some, and it really did the trick. HRR HRR. Thanks for that, mate!
Me: Meep.

That situation, ridiculous as it sounds, pretty much coloured my response to relationships until around my mid-20s. I was still a bit crazy about Jessie for years, and can picture her, though I can’t remember her surname. (I want to say “Spencer” or “Fletcher”, but neither of those can possible be right. Maybe “Simpson”? Hm, no). She is another one of those odd people that I’d actually like to meet on Facebook, but that never seem to surface.

Anyway, the first time Jessie and I really got close to each other – actually, maybe the first night we met, and certainly the first night we kissed – there was a lot of dancing. We were introduced by friends, and doin’ dancin’ at the Sixth Form disco Rugby Club, and danced close all night, though I figured that was just because we both wanted to dance to the same stuff. I mean, we danced with each other, not, y’know, “with” each other.

Anyway, “Birdhouse In Your Soul” was playing a lot back then, and we almost certainly pogoed the hell out of it over the night. After an hour on the dancefloor – which was actually kind of a dance carpet – we went and sat down, and slumped on each other. We were both very sweaty, I remember, and she was flushed red. Thinking about it, she looked kinda blotchy at that point, with the flushing, but after a couple of minutes of slumping, there was kissing, and then there was dating.

We must have been going out around my birthday, because I got a present from her. It was “Flood”, by They Might Be Giants, on vinyl. I’ve still got it, with it’s lovely fold-out yellow sleeve, and listened to it an awful lot – because that’s what you did when you got a new album in your teens.

Dead – They Might Be Giants (“Flood” – 1990)

In retrospect, it sounds like I fell for TMBG because I fell for Jessie, but I don’t think that was the case. Though “Birdhouse…” and “Istanbul” were fairly obvious pleasures, I think what pulled me in to the band was how different they were from everything else I had ever listened to, and how good they were with it. Their lyrics had an irony to them that I’d never heard – possibly only “Lola”  by The Kinks had ever struck me as enjoying such mischevious wordplay.

“Dead”, for example, still gets me, with it’s misleading repeated line that is such an obvious wise-ass feint that when you hear it, you wonder how you’ve never heard it before.

“I returned a bag of groceries accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date.”

… sounds so innocuous, until you hear the lyrics around it, and realise that the chaps aren’t singing a daft song about shopping – the song is actually all about death, regret, rebirth and… that stuff.

It’s the trick they keep playing throughout the album, and their career, making songs that are superficially novelty items, but actually have turns of phrase or word-pictures that reverberate through your brain and make you think much deeper thoughts than you’d expect, if you’d only ever bounced up and down to a song about a canary.

I’ve sought out acts that do similar lyrical trickery ever since, and I have to say that the band utterly changed the way young Nick interacted with music. I’d always loved hip-hop, and listened carefully to lyrics, but this was like my proper way in to music. I’d never be cool enough to know what the different styles of music were, or play an instrument, or know which band were cool, but I understood words.

This smart use of language is common throughout the band’s catalogue, accompanied as it is by an abstract intelligence that makes for songs that are almost self-aware. This isn’t so uncommon now, but it was a big deal to a guy in his late teens, for sure.

Number Three – They Might Be Giants (“They Might Be Giants” – 1986)

“Number Three” does some wacky meta-textual fidgetry with the “world of the song”. It isn’t unheard of, even in mainstream songs – listening as an adult, I realised that even Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” does it – but when They Might Be Giants do it, it’s got a bitter-sweet but funny self-criticism to it that appeals to me at a basic level.

“Number Three”, in particular, is also as jaunty as fuck, which one can’t help but bounce to.

I’ve Got A Match – They Might Be Giants (“Lincoln” – 1988)

“Flood” had to last me a few years, until my second or third year of university when a friend – a lovely lass that I think was called Marianne, who for some reason I really mainly remember driving a carload of us to somewhere nice – found out that I liked what I knew of the band so far, and did me a tape.

(Back then, we were all “doing each other tapes” – it’s what youngsters who hadn’t got it together enough to be promiscuous did in the early nineties.)

I’ve since worked out that that tape was made up of tracks from the band’s eponymous first album, and the 1988 album “Lincoln”. Though I knew “Flood” first and best, many of the songs on those two earlier records are what I’ve come to think of as the classic core TMBG songs, and they recur a lot on collections and such.

“I’ve Got A Match” is one of several love songs by the pair. Though that sounds like an odd fit with their peculiar brand of nerd music, their songwriting actually makes for perfect and poignant songs about broken love.

“Which one of us is the one that we can’t trust?
You say I think it’s you, but I don’t agree with that.” 

… is one of those lyrics that didn’t really come home to me until after a couple of bad relationships. If you can relate to it, it’s one of those perfectly phrased lines.

And if it wasn’t for They Might Be Giants jaunty delivery of sharp and quixotic narratives, I probably wouldn’t be listening to bands like Los Campesinos or even the Eels now. I’ve come to love the acts that don’t need to make a big deal about the fact that they are writing the most insightful stuff there is to say about the human condition because it just comes naturally – they don’t need to act sincere, because they are sincere, so there’s no need to dress their heartache up with mood-lighting and po-faced music videos. TMBG can break your heart with a song that has accordion playing on it.

The thing about They Might Be Giants is that because I’m a lousy fan, and because they aren’t either massively popular across the mainstream, or particularly popular with hipsters, new releases by the band always pass me by. Though I continued to l listen to the stuff I had by them, I didn’t really become aware of new material by them until “Malcolm In The Middle” aired for the first time with a theme song – “Boss Of Me” – that was instantly recognisable as the band.

Man, It’s So Loud In Here – They Might Be Giants (“Mink Car” – 2001)

Having said that, I wasn’t so sure about the rest of the album at first, mainly because it was so different from the band’s previous output. However, once the shock of the new wore off, the variety of the songs started to seep in. “Man, It’s So Loud In Here”, a song which has no right to be as catchy a disco track, being by a band that was just visiting the genre for the feck.

Despite the song’s addictively vacuous musical approach, the characteristic They Might Be Giants playfulness is there in the words once again, with a narrative stance that is sardonically evocative of “Big Yellow Taxi”. It’s a song about clubbing that’s also about not being able to keep up with the pace of clubbing, and after a million awful techno versions of already not great eighties pop in the last few years, this sort of post-modern pop seemed and seems particularly timely.

The other thing about the duo is that at a basic level, they love song. From seeing their approach to music, one gets the feeling that even if they weren’t selling – or even making – albums, they’d still be making music. And that’s something else I’ve picked up from them that carries through into my current listening habits. If I hadn’t encountered them, I’d have wondered what the fuck James Kochalka was up to, for starters. A lot of anti-folk would have just utterly confused me. And they were pioneers of giving stuff away for free online, almost before Apple had even thought of it.

In common with Billy Bragg and The Barenaked Ladies – as well as Kochalka – TMBG don’t seem too bothered about imprinting their “brand” on their songs, or to be particularly precious about how they appear, beyond their basic ideologies, which they are passionate about. This is music stripped of the artist’s ego. The second from last time I saw Billy Bragg live, he played a cover version of a song about wetting the bed. The Barenaked Ladies do everything tongue in cheek, and they aren’t above a pop-song medley – specifically they’ve done an album of Christmas songs that was only half serious. And Kochalka would record and release the songs he sings absent-mindedly to himself on the toilet, if allowed.

They Might Be Giants fulfilled this inclusiveness of approach by branching out into family friendly children’s music, the first recorded outing of which was “No!” in 2002.

Bed Bed Bed – They Might Be Giants (“No!” – 2002)

Just as addictive as previous releases from the band, there’s a lot of great stuff on the album, and though it’s slanted towards songs that are literal enough, and have enough repetition, to be sung along with young children, they are also almost viral to most listeners. Or at least, they were to me.

I’ve included this song, though I could have posted many others from the album, because it makes me broody – I can imagine using it as incitement to getting the kids we don’t yet have up to their respective bedtimes.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this – admittedly quite long and rambling – retrospective on my relationship with They Might Be Giants. Tell me what you think in the comments!

They Might Be Giants can be found online at http://theymightbegiants.com/

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(When did this start properly, by the way? My instinct says that the first CSI really kicked it off proper-style, but that just seems like it can’t be right, for some reason… enlighten me in the comments, wouldja?)

There are a whole bunch of lovely examples, but this is a small selection of tracks that I’ve been thinking about recently, so these are the ones that I’m posting:

Baba O Riley – The Who

Though I had no previous experience of this song before they used it on “CSI: New York”, and it took a while to grow on me at first because of it’s meandering opening, it has become my favourite of the trio of The Who songs that the CSI shows use as tradition. And no, I don’t know how I missed it, as it seems it’s well known – it’s in the original “Life On Mars”, too.
The initial version of the song that they used over the show’s opening credits was cut down pretty short – because this is a bit of an epic song – but it perfectly defines this branch of the franchise as being the on-the-street, shoulder-to-the-grindstone, heavy lifting team that you’d expect of New York cops. The musical scope of the tune belies the lyrics, which are working-man lyrics.
Around season three or four, they swapped out that more powerful version of the song for a musical stab heavy, lyric-light one, with punchier visuals to go along with them.
Girl One and I have not yet come to terms with this – singing along to the earlier version was a highlight of our TV watching experience. Still not sure why they did it, as the song seems redundant without the cool vocals.

We Used To Be Friends – The Dandy Warhols

“Veronica Mars” was one of the best shows that nobody ever saw. I’m still not sure how well known this song was before the show started, but it’s a perfect fit – punchy and youthful, and lyrically dealing with some of the high-school, fall-from-grace social-strata themes of the show.
There was even one of those awesome John Water’s “Yay!” moments during the first season, when Veronica spoke the main chorus lyric as part of the cold-open, just before the credits rolled.
They swapped the original theme out in the third season, for a woozier version of the same song, by the same band. But it didn’t feel as shrewd as the CSI decision in that case, as it was still a pretty – if abstract – version of the tune.

Once In A Lifetime – Talking Heads

This being used as the theme to “Numbers” is a lovely moment of closure for me. I’m a big Talking Heads fan, and the first time I heard them was when this song was used at the beginning of “Down And Out In Beverly Hills”.
There’s a questioning tone in the song, aimed at the listener’s expectations and understanding of their life so far, that worked well for that movie’s themes, and works equally well for the near-autistic attention to detail and use of maths and number theory to map human behaviour used in the show.
Plus, you know, David Byrne! The Talking Heads! Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

Little Boxes – Regina Spektor

One of many cover versions of the classic song used in the second season of “Weeds”. I’m including it here because it’s cute, but by definition it’s not really representative of the theme to the show – which was the same throughout the first season, and then was covered by disparate artists throughout the second one. And dropped altogether by the third.

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I’m undecided on the Johnny Cash song – he may just be talking about the apocalypse in general. Or, you know, just some guy. And actually, it’s possible that each of these songs is some coded reference to alcoholism that I’m just not getting, because I’m only addicted to hookers and glue.

Step By Step – Jesse Winchester

The Man Comes Around – Johnny Cash

Way Down In The Hole – Tom Waits

There’s lots to say about the subject of redemption, as covered by the various and talented musicians and artists out there, but I’m not sure I’m capable of the attention to detail that such a discussion would require this month…

Still, as always, feel free to say what you feel in the comments…!

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Blue Skies Forever – DoYouInvert

I first heard DoYouInvert on the wonderfully, “only vaguely about gaming” gaming podcast, “One Life Left“. He/they do great little anti-folk songs about games.

In other news, I think I have a bit of a crush on Ann Scantlebury, adorably cute and naughty “only vaguely about gaming” newswench. The pictures at their website don’t really give a very clear indication of why I like her voice so much. That isn’t how sounds and pictures work, apparently.

Dust Off Your Cartridge – Joahmonkey

This is actually a mashup, and I know very little about it, beyond that it’s awesome. J directed me to it – there’s a good chance that it comes from either the SomethingAwful or Dinosaur Comics forum.

Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle – Mountain Goats and Kaki King

A lovely love song about the Nintendo trademark character. I think I heard this for the first time via BoingBoing, but it’s a favourite at 1LL as well. Good times!

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It hasn’t worked out exactly right. These female singer-songwriters were a lot more perplexing than I’d have expected.

Our Hell – Emily Haines

I didn’t know Emily Haines before hearing her album over the last couple of weeks – apparently the second solo album from the lady, from 2006. I get the impression her collaborative stuff tends to rock out with it’s cock out.

But this album, “Knives Don’t Have Your Back” is an altogether more flouncy affair, with a smoky vocal played over sometimes pedestrian, sometimes dramatic piano-centric arrangements that evoke cinema noir and emotional, dramatic meetings in black-and-white European alleyways. Sort of.

This track doesn’t sound as much like that as the rest of the cd, but it’s probably the easiest route into the album.

I’ll be honest, I’m still not sure what to make of Haines. The music appeals to me, as it ranges from jazz to classical by way of movie score, but her voice, appealing as it is, is still falling a little shy of the female singer-songwriters that she most reminds me of, and that have more personality to them. She’s halfway between Feist and Jenny Lewis, and can’t quite be heard over their more distinct voices.

Joanna Newsom – Swansea

I’m still trying to get the hang of Joanna Newsom. I’ll admit to being thrown by her voice at first. Which isn’t to say that I found it too shrill, peculiar and odd – all of which it might well be for some people, but you know, I used to love the Bjork as well, before she decided that buying her records was irresponsible behaviour and stopped rewarding it with listenable albums, and Newsom’s delivery has something in common with the odd little Icelandic lady.

I just found it that little bit too difficult to parse, the first few listens-to – without having a sense of her lyrics, and alongside the music – which is very pretty but, despite being probably groundbreaking for harp music, is still probably a little twee and spare to the untrained ear – it’s hard to know whether ultimately the pay-off is going to be worth the effort that one puts in to get the hang of it.

However, I’m glad that I’ve been stuck with her in the iPod shuffle for the last few days. It took a while, but I have started to fall in love with her turn of phrase, and the pictures that she draws with words. After a while, you start to realise that there’s something very traditional about what she’s doing with her songs – she’s telling stories and sharing emotions, and picking a delightfully florid and literate way of doing it.

Her voice still confuses me a little, as it rests across the gulf between Billie Holiday and old-timey cowboy folk, but with each extra try, I find more and more to enjoy about these songs. In fact, my opinion has changed since I started writing this!

Inside A Boy – My Brightest Diamond

I don’t think it’s unfair to draw the odd comparison between My Brightest Diamond and All About Eve – there was a time, after all, before I had my opinions tarnished by my irritation at their fanbase, when I really loved the ‘Eve.

And Shara Worden’s classical and dramatic and beautiful lead vocals, against the prettily sculpted and ornate instrumental backing, at least on “A Thousand Shark’s Teeth” – which is the album I’m listening to – do remind me of the less sedate outings by that earlier band.

At times, as you can hear on this track, the party gets almost rowdy, a few goths bobbing around as if they’re dangerous in the corner, and Shara’s lyrics veering more towards self-examination and self-mutilation than floaty introspection. On occasion, I was even reminded of the Cocteau Twins, before their heads were totally in the clouds circa “Heaven Or Las Vegas”.

At the moment, I’ve listened to My Brightest Diamond less than Newsom or Haines, and I’ve managed to get an idea – perhaps an unfair one – of them as an ideal band to listen to while playing some World Of Darkness game. This isn’t an insult, mind – I’ve just found them better suited so far to being in the background, and they have the drama, angst and prettiness, with occasional gothic – but not Goth – flourishes, that I’d want if I was doing some atmospheric rpg-ing.

I’m sure once I’ve listened to them a little more, I’ll find something that distinguishes them more as a band worth listening to for the sake of listening to them, but right now they feel more like pleasant wallpaper.

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