I have to get this down before I lose it.

The new Starsailor album is out this month, and I’m not sure if I’ll buy it. There’s some­thing about the gen­eral sound of Starsailor songs that evoke an almost inef­fa­ble emo­tion in me. I never even knew they existed until last month, but for some rea­son, their 2001 Love Is Here album cover is oddly famil­iar. Every time I see the sun-washed tracks falling into the hori­zon, I get an odd sense of déjá vu.

As one who rarely has such an ephemeral, mys­ti­cal expe­ri­ence, this strikes me as a extremely poignant thing. I feel as if I know this album, that I’ve seen it before, even had emo­tions asso­ci­ated with it. It’s some­thing I can’t explain, and whether the emo­tions are good are bad, I can’t recall.

Their music moves me nonethe­less. The chord pro­gres­sions are unpre­dictable yet dul­cet, bit­ter yet sweet. I can’t decide if it’s sun­set or sun­rise music, and the album cover serves to empha­size this equiv­o­cal­ity. I can’t even tell if the music makes me happy or sad.

And so remains my prob­lem. Do I want to lis­ten to this music or not? I always find it odd that some­one would not want to think about or expe­ri­ence some­thing sim­ply because it makes them sad. Doing so seems to be so cow­ardly, as if one is run­ning from one’s self.

Yet the prob­lem remains, with other music as well, and as clear as this logic is for me I find it dif­fi­cult to queue up cer­tain songs. Listening to The Postal Service brings back so many amaz­ing, unfor­get­table mem­o­ries, but so many painful thoughts as well.

I choose not to ignore either, and end up being emo­tion­ally torn, unclear in my heart and in my mind.