It is rare to find such emotion in electronic music. Even rarer to find something more beautiful than “Your Love Means Everything” by Faultline (featuring Chris Martin)… “I saw a broken arm. Machines will all break down in the way I know. Mended and all made clean, I saw up on the screen all the stones I throw. It was a strange reaction for someone like you to remain so sure. And in a chain reaction I dissolve and break and then away I crawl…”

I forgot about another slice of culinary conversation I had with my dad at lunch. He said that he had never tried puffer fish but would like to one day because he hears from people that it’s the most delicious thing in the world. I knew that the chefs who prepare the puffer fish have to train for around 3 years to prepare the dish because if the gall bladder is not properly removed, then the diner will die in excrutiating pain from the fish toxins. I didn’t know that if a chef prepares the dish and a diner dies from eating it, that the chef has to perform hara-kiri (end his own life). Bizarre, because I thought hara-kiri (or seppuku) was only practised by the samurai and Yakuza.

We have a guest staying with us; one of mum’s friends from the US. She had brought my mum a multi-coloured rainbow beanie bear from San Francisco.

Mum: Do you like this bear?
Me: Yes, but it’s way too colourful and loud.
Mum: Do you like the colours?
Me: I wouldn’t wear them personally.
Mum: Do you know what the colours signify?
Me: Erm, that the bear is gay?

I think it surprised her that I knew this and perhaps she had forgotten that I’ve actually been there. Either that, or it was some sort of ploy to try to make me come out of the closet (if I was gay in the first place).

I’d never heard any music by Faultline before but this song (”Your Love Means Everything”) captivated me the moment I heard it almost like I was meant to hear it at this point in my life. It’s sometimes the really simple songs that you can draw the most meaning from. It’s hard to believe sometimes that there are only so many notes in the world and they only lie between A and G in the alphabet. And with this finite number of notes we can make a pretty infinite amount of music. I see the same chords and notes appearing in the same progression in a lot of popular songs but they all sound different. It is this versatility that makes music beautiful. Another thing is empathy, when you hear a song and it feels like it’s playing for you and you only. The rhythm of the song takes you over and the lyrics feel like your own narration for your life at that particular time. Some songs sound so different when you hear them at certain times. The sad songs seem even more sad when it feels like they are playing for you, forming the soundtrack of your life in the present. Music is autobiographical and this song will insert itself into this day to remind me how things were now.

I also listened to “Bitter Kiss” by Faultline, featuring Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips. Even though Chris says that I have a voice like his, I didn’t hear it at all on that track. I complained, ahem, only for him to tell me that I don’t sound like him on that track, but on the tracks he does in his band. The other thing I suddenly noticed is that everyone who’s heard me sing thinks I’ve got a good voice. My brother specifies further that I have a good rock voice, but nevertheless I can’t see it (or more accurately, hear it). I know I can sing in key and that’s about all I have going for me I think. It’s great when your head gets to swell doing what you like and I admit I’ve improved a lot over the years but I still honestly don’t think I sound good.

It’s been fun spending more time with Chris, giving him guitar lessons. I’ve always liked teaching others the things I enjoy myself and I find that to teach is to learn twice. I also remembered how great new guitar strings are because the sound is so “live.” You can hear every single tiny vibration and the reverberations are such that if you close your eyes you can almost see the sinusoidal waves wash over you. Sometimes I will be lying in bed playing the guitar and singing and nothing else in the world will matter. Its like stepping out of your skin and placing a magnifying glass over yourself so you can look down introspectively at the stranger beneath you. And at the end, you’ll come closer to understanding the way the world works and the way you work in your own world. Then you realise you can’t be sad forever; that there are other things to smile about in life and your tears don’t always carry away all the things you hope to let go of.