For some songs the quintessential listen, the experience you remember most clearly, is the first. You know where and when and how you heard that song the first time. You remember that your friend Jim played the tape in his car on the way to the food court in the mall or that mixtape that your girlfriend made for you had it as the closing track which buoyed you as you listened to it on the bus back from the game. Or your freshman year roommate played it for his thousandth time and your first–”oh you haven’t heard this before? Yeah, man, it’s great.”

I can say when and where I first heard “My Angel Rocks Back and Forth”–the music library of WMBR May of 2003, probably the week of the release or maybe the week before. But while I can work that out logically, that listening experience has no residency in my memory. Devin, a friend of a friend and the leader singer and guitarist in the now-long defunct Night Rally, would sometimes come and cohost my radio show during that summer of 2003. I had the Friday midnight-till-I-felt-like-it slot and I welcomed the company. More than that, we shared taste in similar music. Importantly, we were both obsessed with this track by Four Tet.

And, for some reason, one of the many times we played the track over the air in those small hours of the morning, we decided to leave the mics on and sing along to the track. Rather spontaneously he took the harp part and I attempted that strangely appropriate crunchy percussion. As silly and goofy as that was and as ridiculous as I’m sure it sounded, to us it was meaningful, a way to get further into the track than we had before.

Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back and Forth (mp3)

You can buy Rounds, the album this track is on, from insound.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 10:25 pm Posted by adrian in SF bay area, mp3s, song obsessions. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.