Rent, Bent, Spent

Some songs are wildernesses you wander into and get lost within. “My Dreams Are Dogs That Bite Me” fits that bill nicely. Its queasy pitch—a helicopter ascending up from nowhere, a tropical storm blowing hollowly, damp sheets flapping on a clothes line, the hull of an ocean liner torn asunder sloooooooowly—is almost Goldilocks & The Three Bears perfect, nestled in that sweet, uneven area between erosion and evasion, the crooked and the concise. Listening to “My Dreams” isn’t work even if writing about it might be, so the best way to procrastinate beginning an article about “My Dreams” involves spending another 20 minutes with “My Dreams,” and then another, and then one more. This is music (largely) eschewing tone, clucking and chug-a-lugging, pausing to reveal endings that stand revealed as false bottoms to nowhere. Self-digesting cassettes or bubbling Bunsen burners? Sullen, splayed distortion, or a soundtrack to some half-imagined, primordial era? I’ve no idea, and honestly, neither do you. Let’s listen to it again. Just once more.