Herbert, "Those Feelings" (2006)

Giirrrrrl, there's trouble in the Herbert/Siliciano household, I tell you. Why, the other night Dani was all pouty and yelling at the same time, if that's even possible, because she had finally heard the almost finished version of Matthew's Scale album. (Warning: link contains big giant head.) Yeah, I know, right, you'd think that she would have heard it, what with singing on most of the tracks and all that, but apparently, and I stress apparently, Matthew was putting it together in bits and pieces so it's like she hadn't really heard heard it in all one piece. Suspicious? You tell me.

So anyway, Dani's all upset because the album is sooo totally Ruby Blue Part 2, like...Oh, you know, it just sounds like the sequel to the Roisin Murphy album that Matthew produced last year. Keep up, dear. So she's all like, hey assface, because she's volatile like that, and all, what the hell, this is just like Ruby Blue Part 2. Like I said, right? And Matthew is like, baby, why you fretting? He's like, I love how the nujazz style turned out with Roisin and all the critics loved it, so it seems right to continue in that vein, and in fact people are all like, hey, here at last is a Herbert record I dig. And he goes on, all, sweetie, finally it's an album where I'm not covering for my lack of melodic sense by walking round the house recording the sound of sizzling bacon or my own farts, so babe, why can't you be happy for me? And I know he was going to say that writing with Roisin had rubbed off on him, but then thought better of that phrasing.

And Dani is all, like, you little shit, you're just making me feel like you have another woman. Like I'm totally wife #2. I know! She did so say that too! And Matthew is all, c'mon, we actually made your solo album Likes... first, so it's more like Ruby Blue was following your template, right? Right. And Dani is all shrieky now, all I-don't-care and shit. Like what's the world gonna think? Can people even tell us apart? Here's a clue, world: Me, Dani, she, fucking Roisin bag. Matthew is all calm down, but Dani's on a roll, saying bastard, you do "If We're In Love" with Roisin, and then on this album you now have this other song called "We're In Love"? And Matthew is all clever, pointing out, yeah, but you see, how with Roisin there was a "if," but with this song it's the two of us and there's totally no "if," cause we're totally in love, right? Do you see?! But Dani is all fuck you, it doesn't change the fact that you're treating me and Roisin like we're fucking interchangeable, like, what are we, just two models in your line of, erm, models? Like disposable sex dolls in your goddamn harem? And Matthew is getting freaked and irritated, like, babe, be reasonable, you're not even making sense. So god, you can imagine, Dani is now furious, all I'm unreasonable? Bitch, you did not just say that, why don't you fuck off to Roisin's side, which I'm sure is oh so reasonable. So there're doors slamming, and Matthew has to slink off back to the studio to finish the album's last track -- called "Wrong," ha ha -- by doing the vocals himself for the first time ever. And then when he got home, of course it was the couch, ooh!

Sigh. Poor things. So upsetting. Let's think of happier things, shall we? "Those Feelings": from Scale, a gentle, plaintive ballad backed by Matthew's glitchy, gurgling beats. "You're the best idea I ever had, never had, never had/Now we're strangers on each other's photographs/Used to write your name there in the dark, inside my heart, in my heart/Now my head can't even spell." Erm, maybe not so happy after all. And it's a bit like Roisin's "Through Time" or "The Closing Of The Doors," but you totally didn't hear that from me.