Cocteau Twins - "Ella Megablast Buris 4Ever". On the night of Erik Fforde's fortieth birthday, he looked out onto the silver city and he wondered where she was. Where she was and what she was doing; if she was speaking or if she was silent; if she was already in bed or out on the town, laughing. He wondered, not for the first time, how he would meet this woman. Ella Ilium. Her name had come to him in a dream, 21 years ago, when he was 19 years old. The dream told him that her name would be Ella Ilium, and he would meet her when he was forty years old. She was five foot eight, with hair in curls to her shoulders. She had a wide face, old gray eyes, small wrists; she smelled of roses, and wooden gates. Ella Ilium was an anthropologist, his dream told him, specialising in the Sami people of Finland. She spoke English, French, Swedish, Finnish, and a touch or Portuguese. She liked tea, chocolate and rosemary. Erik Fforde closed his eyes and he heard her voice, heard the way it had sounded 21 years ago. "There you are," she had said in the dream, the rs gilded in breath. She was his true love, in a blue dress. She had a book under her arm. "There you are." Erik Fforde lived in an apartment high above the ravine. He was five foot eleven and collected first editions of Dante's Paradiso. He owned a framing shop. He had been with only one woman since the dream of Ella Ilium. That was a long time ago. Her name had been Catherine. Once, only once, three years ago, Erik Fforde had searched Ella's name on the internet. He had looked for just the scarcest moment at the results. It had seemed like cheating. There was a reference to Erasmus, and for some reason, he didn't understand why, the phrase permian dusk. Then he had closed the window. Now Erik Fforde looked out over the silver city and he wondered whether Ella Ilium knew he was coming. [buy Blue Bell Knoll]

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Elsewhere:

Enjoying Sonny and the Sunsets' "Too Young to Burn" (via Catbirdseat), White Hinterland's cover of Justin Timberlake's "My Love" (via Gorilla vs Bear), Vampire Weekend's "Horchata" and Jason Derulo's Imogen Heap-sampling "Whatcha Say".

(photo source)