It's been too long since I listened to my song of the day, "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight." It's off the collaborative 2003 album with the inspirational title Give Up.
Vis-a-vis this particular tune, I love the weird sense of disaffection, the singer's kafka-esque unfamiliarity and the orchestral sweep of the electronic mix. Then, wait for it, the beat speeds up and the song takes on the momentum of a brisk game of pong played at five times the normal speed.
Give up was a unique and landmark album that lived in my CD player nearly two-decades ago. The Postal Service is a collaboration between Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, producer Jimmy Tamborello and vocalist Jenny Lewis. (I had no idea about the latter musician's participation until consulting Wikipedia, the worlds most distrusted yet most consulted source.)
The lyrics on songs like this and "Such Great Heights" feature Gibbard's trademark image-rich and metaphor-drenched poetry. His tendency toward melancholic introspection, however, is buoyed by riff-heavy guitar and keys, brisk beats and the creative chaos of collaboration.