"there is this thing that's like fucking except you don't fuck"

I am a person who gets excited about music. Very excited. Every now and then, I happen upon some new band or artist that stops me in my tracks. As their music envelopes me, I feel my blood-pressure rise, my heart-rate increase. I feel hot, and yet there are shivers playing up and down my spine. Sometimes, the pleasure caused by the music is so intense, my vision momentarily fades to white and I lose all track of space and time. Maybe I'm just a pretentious music-geek. Or maybe I'm an unhealthy music freak. One way or the other, this is the closest I get to... you know... without... you know...

One of the most memorable times I experienced this feeling was listening to these people, playing this record. Their ethereal sounds, like something from beyond the realms of this world, were indescribably exciting, and comletely different to anything I'd ever heard before.

It doesn't happen often - until recently, I hadn't really had a musicgasm since this man, and this record. Sitting in the dark of my room, with this epic, bipolar masterpiece washing over me was like a journey of discovery. He does things with the pop/rock-song form that I never imagined were possible. This feeling is exciting to me. It makes me feel that, despite what the Popular Charts would have you believe, there are still inventive, inspiring and wonderful places that popular music can go.

At present, I am abandonning all musical dignity and offering up my aural loins for plunder, to these people:

Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione are The Dresden Dolls.

I was in Sydney. It was dark and quite chilly. I was in the back-seat of a car, hurtling through the bush-like outer suburbs. The windows were down. Ms Sami put on a CD. It was The Dresden Dolls' second album,"Yes, Virginia...". The first track was Sex Changes. I was initially taken back by the frankness of the line "We'll have to chop your cock off!", but then, as this voice - tantalisingly appealing and dangerously threatening - belted out "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," I was inescapably engrossed. Then Sami skipped ahead and played My Alcoholic Friends (gets stuck in your head for days, but doesn't irritate you. Est possible?) and Delilah (how many songs run for 8 minutes and leave you wanting more?). It is fair to say I have not been the same since.

After hearing me describe the music I write as "kinda theatrical... ummm... piano-based... umm... folk/rock/jazz stuff... i guess?", many people had suggested I seek out The Dresden Dolls. I even once spent a good 15 minutes in Borders holding one of their albums in each hand, and ended up leaving with neither because I couldn't decide which one to get. Now that I've heard them, I realise it wouldn't have mattered which I bought. I've also realised it was quite redundant of people to recommend them on the basis of my own stuff... I wish I was comaparable to Viglione's energy, to Palmer's songwriting skill, to the band's sheer inventiveness and vibrance.

Their sound is made up only of a piano and a drumkit (with very occasional guitar thrown in) but these few instruments make a hell of a lot of noise. The Dresden Dolls are theatrical, dramatic, passionate, sometimes very understated, sometimes incredibly over the top. Palmer's vocals can be anything from a cheeky whisper, to a playful nursery-rhyme taunt, to a blood-curdling scream. The melodies sound like they've been ripped from Weimar-era cabaret. The lyrics are very much the product of a post-modern world. The music is haunting and funny and breathtaking... and above all exciting, in every sense of the world.

Many critics have tried and failed to adequately describe their sound. I suspect I am not doing any better. So I shall stop. Go. Seek. Find. Listen. Love. Worship.

Life is no cabaret
We don't care what you say
We're inviting you anyway
You motherfuckers you'll sing someday...