Cymbals Eat Guitars
Lose

Finding myself in the middle of a summer jogging session suddenly caught by a downpour so heavy it seemed to swallow the sky, was an experience I had never had before.

That's how it went.

It's morning, a cloudy day, like so many of this strange summer, but essentially stable.

I'm just running at the roundabout by the seafront of my town, on my way back home, with the last notes of "Child Bride," one of the central tracks of the latest album by Cymbals Eat Guitars, in my ears.

The piece is acoustic (guitar, voice, some music box, a gentle bass), very sweet, I like it for the sense of melancholic serenity it conveys (it very much resembles certain Mellon Collie pieces by the Smashing Pumpkins).

The sky for a few minutes, however, promises really badly, despite "Child Bride," above me a gray sea, I feel its threatening rumble through the notes of the song that is about to end, that ends.

A few moments of silence, and within seconds here comes the deluge...

A torrential rain hits me on the wings of a slide on the white keys of a synth, with an acid taste, a slide of heart-wrenching notes, miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-re-mi-sol-mi.

I keep running.

The atmosphere created by the rain that hits me and by listening with headphones to "Laramie," with the wonderful psychedelic atmosphere of the track, enchants me.

The ghost of my beloved Flaming Lips from the good old days, those of The Soft Bulletin, of "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate," has come to visit me under this thunderstorm.

After a couple of minutes, D'Agostino's initially soulful and falsetto singing changes and becomes more desperate as the rain increases.

I keep running, I decide not to stop and take shelter, I prefer to be completely soaked by the notes of this song.

At about four minutes, the atmosphere changes, the song (for it is indeed a song) changes like a typical progressive piece, it sounds like a ride, a noise ride.

By now I am completely out in the open, with no trees to shelter me, leaving the sea on my right, finding cars on my left.

I keep running.

I got home after about four minutes, completely drenched and happy, washed in soul and shoes.

PS.
A bit of what I personally experienced in the first four of those wonderful eight minutes of "Laramie" you might find here.
The rest of the album (dedicated to the memory of a friend of the band's leader/guitarist/singer who died at nineteen of a heart ailment) which I haven't talked about, which you can partly listen to dry, is also in my opinion noteworthy and I strongly recommend you give it a listen.