"Jetstream" Doves

So here we are. Several hours later, but I'm finally able to sit down, don my headphones and devote some quality time to listening to this new Doves track for the first time. I'd almost forgotten how good this band sounds through a nice set of cans. For the past few months I've been using my iPod ear buds for convenience sake, but right now I'm wearing my over-ear headphones turned up loud, with the rich bass tones, crystal highs and everything in between. It feels right to listen to Doves like this. I've got "Jetstream" all queued up and ready to go just after "Snowden" - one of my favorites from "Some Cities - and I cannot wait. What with the commoditization of music and my own admitted habit of using music as mere background noise, it's really nice to be excited enough about something to devote all of my attention to it, turning up the volume to tune everything else out.

The last notes of Snowden are fading away, and my heart is pounding. There is a tone, repeating, tapping, and ghostly vocals, smoke in a room and a more dancey sound than I was expecting. There are spotlights dancing around the ceiling, outlined in the smoke machine haze, watery cymbals are fading in and out, distance expanding and contracting and a rise. That trademark Doves sound set in a new landscape, spacey and reminiscent of their past as a dance band. Shades of Spaceface and The Hacienda, Sheffield and Ecstasy. But it's the 21st century and Doves aren't Sub Sub anymore. There is a lushness, a velvety texture that snuggles into your ears, warm and interesting, comforting. It makes me incredibly excited to hear what else they've got in store for the album.

There is a car speeding down the motorway, reflectors in the road flashing flashing flashing, the drum beats marking out the speed, mist clinging to the windoshield, speeding away, up and back, speeding speeding speeding, streetlamps whizz by, darkness and stars, streaks of light and fogging windows, the car is close but comfoortable, close friends and closer music. It's intimate like a shared secret in a hot club, sweat and flush, but not with a stranger, someone closer than that, someone you've always loved and just now found out they felt the same. There's a rush of not knowing if this will ever happen again, but there's a promise in the kiss, in the way the hot arms are wrapped around you, it's not just a one time thing, there's more to it than that, there's much more in store for you.

"Jetstream" Doves (although, you really should sign up for the mailing list as doves.net)

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