It all began with the end of The Breakfast Club, when the characters are all going their separate ways, and Simple Minds start up with "(Don't You) Forget About Me." I decided then that it would be forever my quest to seek out theme music for my life, so I could try to be as cool as Judd Nelson, or at least as cute as Molly Ringwald. You know, like a perfect cue-in of "Godzilla" as I suddenly lurch from the bar, my intoxication reaching that pinnacle where all reason and coordination evaporates. Yeah. That would be cool. Heh-heh.

Which brings us to Banco De Gaia's Big Men Cry. I saw the cover and thought, "Well, I'm a big man, and I cry, at least when they pre-empt episodes of Star Trek Deep Space 9... maybe." To be sure, I could easily picture myself, strutting through Wal-Mart, snapping my fingers and scoping-out all of the retail princesses as "Drippy" grooves on, with it's bongoed layers of percussion and trampling samples of voices, laughter and tribal instruments, yeah -- "Hey baby!" And "Celestine", which by the way also features sax by Dick Parry (who also did sax on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and Dark Side Of The Moon), that's got my remnants of sweaty, teenage uncertainty and doubt written all over its Floydian influences. And the galumping, sinisterly trippy "Drunk As A Monk" may as well be automatically appropriated for the weekend I spent on mushrooms where my buddy fell under the delusion I was gay and trying to fuck him. Finally, (no, I'm not going to biographasize the entire album), we come to "Big Men Cry," which could indeed be the soundtrack to the end of any of my many failed relationships, or at least the ones I imagine when I'm watching Dharma and Greg. In short, this is a beautiful album filled with complex soundscapes, piles of rich and delightful sampling and beats, mellow yet interesting and worth your time if you're patient enough to wait through each of the album's seven long tracks. Not unlike Loop Guru's Loop Bites Dog, just a little more finicky and a little less poppy and ironic. Ladies, if this happens to also be the soundtrack to your life, you can find my e-mail by following the link below.

-James P. Wisdom