Souvenir (1981) – Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

(Part One of the Gorgeousness and Gloom tetralogy)

As a small consolation to its victims, had “Souvenir” been playing on the Titanic as it succumbed to the icy waters of the North Atlantic, at least the sound of heaven would have accompanied them to their watery graves. Dabs of choppy keyboard bob beneath a sublime motif emanating in exquisite patterns that lap against a vessel of sinusoidal waveforms adrift on an oceanic soundscape of ethereal synthesized voice pads. A beat thumps starkly as Paul Humphreys vacillates laconically in dichotomies—volition vs. vicissitude, infatuation vs. indifference—in an attempt to resolve his confusion. His angst endures as a memento of his desire, impairing his sense of reason and confounding his emotions in a state of discombobulation.

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Me and the Bees (2000) – The Softies

(Part Two of the Gorgeousness and Gloom tetralogy)

Twee-pop icon Rose Melberg and fellow indie pop cohort Jen Sbragia susurrate in sotto voce with the dejection of girls sent to their room. A piano pensively picks out notes while a guitar gently strums crestfallenly, as the girls mope in forsaken aimlessness, given to the caprice of nature (“Now it’s just me / and the bees / in a cyclone of fallen leaves”), as love lost blows away in diaphanous traces, blue with heartache and longing.

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Someplace (But Not This Place) (Window Gardens Remix) (2001) – Brittle Stars

(Part Three of the Gorgeousness and Gloom tetralogy)

Despite her hints that she’s close to calling off the relationship, she’s still not taken seriously. So vocalist Estelle sighs wearily about being patronized: “But you said ‘Sleep on this’ / That’s what my dad would say.” She knows the nagging discomfiture portends unhappiness. While the original version lulls in its simply stated sedateness, the Window Gardens Remix restores the lush elegance implicit in the original by adding astral synthesized strings and chiming guitar, pushing the band further back in the mix, and increasing the reverb while clarifying the vocals—treatments that enhance the disconsolate beauty of an inevitable adieu.

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Out Walking (2003) – Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham

(Part Four of the Gorgeousness and Gloom tetralogy)

Yes, she provided the singing voice of Jem, served as singer for Belltower, co-starred with Julia Roberts and Justine Bateman in Satisfaction, and became Luna’s foxiest bassist. But, whatever Britta Phillips did up until the day she recorded “Out Walking” pales in comparison. For, on that day, she approached ne plus ultra.

Phillips’ sensual, aching purr drifts in a narcotic aura of disorienting beauty, wafting in slow oscillatory gradations between melodic zeniths and nadirs with the cigarette-distressed beguilement of a femme fatale. She describes a couple’s weary apathy—his rote, her remove. On occasion, however, their romance sporadically awakens in sparks of rejuvenation, as when an old song brings those feelings flooding back.

Spectral reverb and toasty compression envelope Phillips’ breathy emissions that wash over a substratum of Mellotron string drones, roundwound bass string heft (both courtesy of famed David Bowie producer Toni Visconti), and pendulating drum lethargy. Fellow Luna bandmate/leader Dean Wareham loiters off to the side, sparingly dispensing subtle thrums of guitar. Gliding on a draft of Mellotron flute, tintinnabulating sleighbells, and morsels of vibraphone, the instrumental break captures the enchanting otherworldliness of a winter evening in Reykjavík. Britta winds up by recalling her quondam life as the person she was referring to, at one point finessing the word “from” with such absolutely gorgeous expressiveness that it triggers shivers of synaptic bliss, suffusing the being with holistic euphoria.

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Communication (2004) – The Cardigans

(Epilogue to the Gorgeousness and Gloom tetralogy)

Despite its odd and enigmatic ambiguity, “Communication” is Nina Persson’s moment of pure vocal perfection wherein she radiates the quintessence of beauty. It unfurls slowly like a country ballad playing on the jukebox of a lonely roadhouse in the purlieus of Twin Peaks. Its warm tube compression and lush reverb cradle Persson’s silken, slightly smoky voice that lingers on notes, caressing each measure with pathos (including a heart-rending, tear-welling massaging of “eye” in the second verse). 

Portraying a woman who has searched unsuccessfully for intimacy, she finally discovers a promising soul mate. The details of their circumstance slowly begin to unfold: soon after they met, she discovered their shared heroin addiction; unbeknownst to him, she fell in love—unrequited—but at least in those moments when they were shooting-up together, they were simpatico. However, she died from an overdose. She lives on in his memories, but the presence he sometimes feels is, in fact, her supernatural attempts to let him know she is there. From her heavenly vantage point, she still believes he’ll one day realize how she felt about him, and maybe he’ll reciprocate, at least metaphysically. But, to her dismay, as difficult as conveying her feelings to him seemed in life, they are nearly impossible in the hereafter, given his unwillingness to hold a séance or consult a Ouija board. So desperate has she become, that she tries to beckon him by planting suicidal thoughts as he sleeps. All she can do is wait for death, whenever that may occur (an overdose, perhaps?), to reunite them. Such futility exacerbates the frustration of a soul who, even without corporeal existence, craves elusive companionship.

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