Algorithmic Thrusting

I just destroyed my cute, half-deviously obtained iPod Nano listening to Momus’s “Nervous Heartbeat” because, as Milan Kundera (who I’ve never read) says, “Happiness is the longing for repetition.” And even machines get tired (see above). The video is crap, so close your eyes and click on the YouTube link.

“Nervous Heartbeat” was, for three minutes, my favorite single of 2006; now it is my second-favorite single of 2006. I remember getting the promo for Momus’s 2005 album, Otto Spooky, and then refusing to review it for Stylus. Because as I’ve been recently reminded, working through the flaws of people and things you deeply love isn’t very satisfying.

The best scene in Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 is when the protagonist in the future–for those who haven’t seen it, the narrative is split between the 60s and 2046–is stripped of all direction and begins flopping at the feet of every ladytron in stone’s throw. “Will you leave with me?” He repeats the words over and over. It’s the same phrase another one of the characters (from the past) practices on her rooftop but can never say to the one she loves. Everything is scripted. Tourettic vows. And the queasy, uncanny gap between those cliches and committment is what I’ve always found incredible about that movie (and about Badlands and Julee Cruise). Love for love’s sake; yes for the sake of yes. Happiness might be the longing for repetition, but it’s not the repetition of longing.

So it kind of blows my fucking face off that dandy Momus, disaffected supplier of sex punch lines, has managed to produce such transcendent pap. His pillowtalk gets autotuned and contorted like V/Vm. Strings hang in restaurant smoke like that Richard Hawley schmaltz all the Stylus kids were twirling for last year. Tremendous.