Breathless...

A few years ago my friend J, who I went to Jr. high & high school with but lost touch after that, and I realized we were both living in London.  J was one of the very few kids in our school who knew about cool music.  We used to trade Cure bootlegs and I remember him bouncing up and down in a big Dr. Seuss hat when James came to New Haven on the 'Laid' tour.  I went to J's birthday party last night at the Elephant & Castle bowling lanes and was very surprised indeed to see Dominic Appleton from Breathless amongst the party guests!  Breathless came over and played with my old band Rockets Burst From The Streetlamps (here, have our second album, 'Departed', for free.  And here's a collection of other tracks that came as a bonus disc.  'The Cartographer' was our pop single and I still think it's pretty special.  Actually, I think they all are : ) in Boston and New York in 1999 and then again in 2000.  Those gigs were pretty great.

'Chasing Promises' is my favourite Breathless album with 'Compulsion' being my favourite Breathless song.  Dreamy and beautiful with an insistent melodic pulse underneath, the line "we may never get quite so close again" gets me every time, reminding me of so many girls and that delicious moment of opportunity that lingers only for a second before things go whatever way they were going to, but in that moment contained all possibilities.  I remember very shyly telling Dominic at the CBGB's Gallery in NYC how much I loved that song and he laughed and told me they opened for My Bloody Valentine once and started with that song, and when it was over only one person clapped.  A very awkward moment.  But here it is in all its beauty:




And another enchanting soundscape from the same album, 'Here By Chance':





My other favourite Breathless song is the version of "Moment By Moment" on the 'Over And Over' EP .    It is just lovely and whisks you away on a sigh.  Unable to find a version to listen to, here's the video for the excellent 'Over And Over':




And "Don't Just Disappear" was the hit.  (There is an official video for this but the audio quality isn't that great on the youtube clip).




And, heck, here's the video for "All The Same" by Rockets Burst From The Streetlamps (this was on a 7" as it's quite different from the rest of our stuff):




Before I sign off, I should mention there's some other good stuff on Breathless' label, Tenor Vossa . I particularly like ...Bender and Moly.