Makeup Monsters - "Rude Romantique"

By way of analogous example, take for instance that time in childhood when you're in the grocery store or a museum or an outdoor crowd, and it's winter. A lot of people have that similar brown thigh-length coat with the fur-lined hood and by accident you follow the wrong person, thinking it's your parent. Until finally, you think of something to say, tug on the grungy edging of that coat and the person turns around with this horrifying masque-version of your parent's face. You look around as if this were a joke or really a nightmare. Well if you can believe it, I went out with the wrong girl for 3 months in this same way. My actual girlfriend and I were both into shoegaze music and hiding our eyes with our hair, and never really referred to each other with our names, it was always "hey" or "dude". For 3 months I met up with this other person, we would watch movies and snuggle, go to concerts, go for walks, ride bikes together, cook for each other, share our clothes, lend books, write love notes, make mixes, ask advice, leave goofy messages, call really late, talk about our families, get drunk together, and flirt endlessly, as if the flirting would go on forever, as if we were constantly just coming together anew, sparking, buzzing, pop. And then suddenly, the way you need to come up for air when you're underwater, we were making love as we often did and we finally saw who the other was for, apparently, the first time. It came out before I could self-edit, "Oh shit sorry," I said, "I thought you were someone else." [MySpace]

Kathryn Williams - "Little Lesson"

I imagine that there must be at least some souls making-do in Hell. Yes, Hell. Aitch, ee, double-hockey-sticks Hell. Whether it's the dark horned angels doling out damnation, or the few lucky masochists they got as their charge, there must be some meditative moment, some reflection of "I could do this better" or "am I really using my surroundings?" There must be, it's simply the nature of all progression. I imagine an organism, perfectly evolved to survive and thrive in the underworld. It's some kind of paper-thin kevlar carpet, that flies on hot air and cooks its food on contact, its entire face a digestive element. The Dark Leaf, I think they call it, and they can be as big as a parliament flag or as small as leftover shavings in the sink. [Out Today in the UK]

(photo of The Death Pit)