Busman's Holiday

I heard "What We Need We Know" a month or so ago. It was a complete lark. I wasn't paying attention to what was happening between my ears and my feels and when I turned towards the speaker where the music was pouring out, I had one of those "holy shit what is this feeling?" moments. 

Busman's Holiday had straight up kicked me in the throat. 

The instrumentation seemed to just show up, like little carved wooden figurines popping out of an ornate and intricate cuckoo clock, one by one showing their face and their instrument of choice, and then returning back into the inner workings of a clock powered by some unseen force. The vocals felt like I had heard them on some television show I used to watch as a kid, laying flat on my belly on the floor, looking straight up at the dusty and pregnant glass tube, hands under my chin, legs kicking behind me. 

I told my wife the instant the song was over "I've never heard a song sound more like October than this song right now". And I remember her looking up from her cup of coffee, noticing that she too was sort of in a comfortable daze, and her slow nod told me I had fucking found jeans and hoodies and crunching leaves, but in song form.

So I pre-ordered the vinyl, because Popular Cycles just SCREAMS 'fresh vinyl on a Sunday morning'. Knowing that the pre-order came with a download of the album a week before the vinyl shipped, I was faced with a conundrum. Do I wait to pop the album's cherry with a full on solo pantsless vinyl listening party or do I get a head start on obsessing over Busman's Holiday's new album in my car while driving to and from work and soccer games and meetings and more work?

I gave in and downloaded the album and made sure I had the opportunity to give at least half of the album a spin before leaving the comfort of my car.

So last Friday I left work and drove home, and there was none of the usual fucking traffic I normally deal with, so it took less than half my normal commute time. My wife had scooped the kids already, so they were already out on their bikes when I pulled in the driveway. Five songs later and I have two kids with no two front teeth banging on my driver's side window and one with most of his teeth banging on my passenger side window, while I was reclined all the way back with the stereo on loud as fuck.

Leave it to Busman's Holiday to make a motherfucker pissed off that the drive home doesn't take as long.

This new album, Popular Cycles, is incredibly fucking beautiful. Hell, I couldn't get through the opening track "Mother" without starting it over, and then on the third time through I realized it's two completely different songs in 4 minutes and 16 seconds.

Busman's have this knack for creating music that sounds like it would perfectly accompany an artistically animated short story, complete with whimsical winds and tumbling leaves, and the song "Unknowing" has that Who's The Boss sitcom intro type of fall beauty but with a "Life Goes On" type hug to it. It's been driving me fucking comfortably crazy this last week, and I want you all to listen to it a thousand times before this fall is over because it's IMPORTANT THAT YOU FEEL THIS FEEL WITH ME. 

"Make Believe" is one of those songs you listen to while wobbly balancing on an imaginary balance beam while wearing a bright yellow coat, and it's that fucking WHIMSY bros. 

"No One Could Be" is the song I didn't think I'd love the first few times through the album, but now it's grown on me so thick I now consider it family; a hand clapping, cup tapping, foot stomping WHIMSICAL (again) member of my family. 

"Evening Flows" is another animated short story put to music, where I'm pulling my collar up tight to the wind as the world burns in my peripheral. It's fucking beautiful.

All of the instrumentation on this album is somehow straight out of a fucking dream, and besides just making me feel super fucking comfortable in these freshly laundered pants and sweatshirts, Busman's Holiday has again created something that just fucking makes me feel loved. This entire album, is somehow perfectly autumn, and the perfect shade of decay. 

I fucking love this band. And I can't wait for the fucking vinyl to show the fuck up already!