Released on 30/04/07
Label: Bella Union

There's a little secret that people who work in pop music don't want you to know, whether they're journalists, A&R men, marketers or songwriters. And that secret is that no-one really has a clue how this elusive art works. You can listen to songs until your ears bleed, study obsessively, analyse chord sequences and at the end of it all, no-one truly knows why one song captures your heart while another slides without impression from your brain.

Which is why it's impossible to explain just why this song from Midlake's breakthrough second album is so haunting. It's morose, singer Tim Smith boasts the familiar frail falsetto of US alt-rock, there's practically no structure and some obvious echoes of Fleetwood Mac's "You Make Loving Fun". And yet, despite these unpromising ingredients, each time it fades to its close you feel the urge to listen to it again, to hear Smith's forlorn longing for the distant past while guitars shuffle uneasily by. Mysterious, strange and beautiful.

    by Jaime Gill