Envelopes - "Boat"

The Envelopes have made a very nice album, Here Comes the Wind. The album, I would describe it as nice, it doesn't offend, it's confident in itself, and it doesn't presume that you will enjoy it, it earnestly tries to convince you that it's pretty cute. But "Boat" is the album's dark center, it's bloody filling. It feels like a child's confession, in the kind of way children can talk when they don't really understand how much their words can cut deep. It bandies its own horrible despair around like it were the shoes in the front hall. Everything is right about it: the strummy guitar standing on its tippy-toes and the little sliding notes as steady as summer rain. And her voice like cupped hands, not interested in yelling or getting carried away, just here to tell it like it is.

Oh, and it's got 45 seconds of some kind of naval computer war sounds at the end. The first part feels tied to the song, like as if the child character goes back to playing video games after singing, silent and staring with blue light flickering on her. But the second part feels like part of the album (it gets a bit bloopy after this point)

[Buy]

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Elsewhere: Ed David e-mailed us yesterday with a link to a lovely little documentary that he photographed on Paul Mawhinney, the man with the largest record collection in the world.