But at the end of the program, during the “constructive rest” segment, comes “Bad Days,” by Timo Mass, the gorgeous closer to his all-killer-no-filler 2002 dance freakout, Loud. And while it’s ideal music for “letting my body undulate on the waves of my breath while my brain sinks into my heart” (the DVD’s words, not mine), I may have to swap it out with a less potent, emotionally loaded piece.

Because “Bad Days” actually connotes very good days: the sunny spring of 2002 when I didn’t have much of an agenda beyond drinking beer with Neil and playing drums in a party band. There were some bad days back then, too: I wasn’t so much on a career track so much as wildly derailed from it, and I was letting a number of personal relationships deteriorate for various reasons.

But euphoric recall allows me to only remember the sunny afternoons and the bacchanalian nights in Iowa City bars, and seeping in through the cracks between the dance anthems and the sweaty rock songs was this one—bright, patient, searching.

* That is an actual sentence I typed, on a blog with my real, full name on it; a blog that anyone in the world can read.

In any event, there are some towering songs on Actor. Sonically, it’s more adventurous and more polished than Marry Me, which is saying a lot. I would be able to tell that Annie Clark has been listening to a lot of Robert Fripp even if she hadn’t mentioned it in interviews.

“Black Rainbow” is probably the most frighteningly accomplished song here. Its final mounting crescendo is pure bombast, and its intricate arrangements marry the best bits of chamber pop and prog rock. I’d like ten more of these songs every year for the rest of my life, please.

You’re welcome.

Maybe I was put off by the Brooklyn thing. Maybe I was put off by the album title, or the band name. Something about the band name annoyed me. But plenty of great bands have dumb names, and pretentious album titles. The Beatles is a dumb name. Whatever was holding me back, I overcame it last week when I finally downloaded Bitte Orca and immediately got angry at everyone I know who didn’t force me to listen to Dirty Projectors sooner. I feel like the lamest kid around.

Better late than never, I suppose. Suddenly all the glowing praise makes sense. Suddenly I’m rushing back to re-read Frere-Jones’ profile. Suddenly I know what hocketing sounds like. Suddenly I realize that this is truly progressive rock music.

It’s a minor miracle that I managed to 1) live in Chicago and 2) be a progressive rock fan without ever discovering Cheer-Accident, a progressive rock band from Chicago. They’ve been around nearly 30 years but I never heard of them until my band opened for them at the Hexagon in February. It was probably the most appropriate bill we’ve ever been on: four playfully proggish bands with decent senses of humor, culminating in these bedraggled prog heroes from Chicago playing their hearts out well after midnight on the Hex’s tiny stage.*

“Blue Cheadle” is the best example of the more accessible but no less dangerous direction the band’s taken with their new album, Fear Draws Misfortune. The song forms are shorter and poppier, with indie elements like a fat, wet snare sound, horns and strings, and female harmonies. Lord knows what the title means, or what the lyrics are, but it’s one hell of a song, as much for its grooves and melodies as its wickedly impossible meters.

Also here’s a video of the band performing the song at the Hideout, in Chicago.

*Two highlights of that show, by the way, were when some jerk in the audience shouted “Chicago sucks!” during a quiet moment in a song, and Thymme Jones responded, while still playing, “The city, or the band?” and when bassist Alex Perkolup told Run At The Dog that we sounded like the B-52s, only “less gay.”