album review: Mines

Tuesday morning. Last night I imagined myself getting a solid night of eight-plus hours of sleep. Then, of course, midnight rolls around and I'm still focused on all the tiny parts of my body that just aren't comfortable enough to settle down for the evening. My band decided to start doing two practices a week as we've got our first "gig" next Monday, an open mic night at the Phoenix Cafe (if you're reading this: please don't come.) We usually wrap things up before eleven o'clock, which is late enough that afterward all I want to do is go to bed. Still, three hours of loudness in my basement seems to echo in my brain for some time before I can finally concede to rest.

When I woke up, a song that had been in my head for the past few days was prompting me with it's lyrics:

"Oh, in the morning, I stumble
my way towards the mirror
and my make up, it's light out
and I now face just what I'm made of"

It is the opening track from Menomena's Friend and Foe. I think it was an internet friend who first recommended them to me, and their album I Am the Fun Blame Monster! has been living on my computer ever since. I think I know a song or two off of it. For whatever reason, while browsing some SoulSeek user's shared files a year or so ago I saw Friend and Foe and decided to add it to my collection as well. Like so many random songs, the aforementioned "Muscle'n Flow" ended up on a monthly mix CD and is going to continue to pop into my head from time to time. When such an occasion occurs, I do something like revisit the album, searching for another piece of ear candy. I burned myself a CD-R copy, and put it on waiting for something to jump at me. Nothing really did, but I wasn't disappointed. Some music just works better as a vague whole of background sounds as opposed to tracks requiring individual observation.

Mines makes me think it's Menomena as a band that I interpret as something wonderfully un-examined. Why try to pick them apart for their single songs when from start to finish there is nothing not to like? While at work, backing up my computer onto an external hard drive, jump-starting my brain over an LA Times online crossword, observing the nine-to-fivers signing onto Facebook, or any combination of daily wake-up activities; a soundtrack is just what moments like these need. Something not so specific as to be distracting, but enjoyable as to not once make me think that putting on fifty five minutes of music was a bad decision. Every now and then I pick out a lyric that I really like, or an instrument that catches my ear. Parts working so well as sections of a greater whole, I think.