I’m headed for The Land of Enchantment on Thursday morning. I’ll be taking some music with me. Are you surprised? I’ve got some hip-hop that Deep picked out for me. I’ve got some old-school Joe Walsh (if you scoff I’ll know you’re a Philistine.) I’ve got some stellar progressive house tracks picked up recently from beatport.com, including a groovy tribal mix of “Miss Thing” by James Benitez. Good stuff.

And I’ll be tossing the E.P. by Nest onto the pile, too. This is actually something I’d been meaning to pass along to you all some time ago, but then the blog got all screwy and then the aliens invaded and then I had a weird dream about bricks, so I put it off. Nest is a local band. Several weeks ago, head chanteuse, Ayana Haviv, actually drops a copy of their e.p. off at my flat in the hopes that I’d write about it. I actually think that’s a pretty gutsy move. What if I don’t like it? What if I think it sounds like someone stepping on a sodden saltine? Because if it does, I’m gonna write about that.

As it happens, I rather like it. A lot.

Its best moment comes very early, in the song “Ultraviolet,” which, fortunately, bears no resemblance to the emaciated belly of Milla Jovovich, sonically or otherwise. After coasting along on a tripping rhythmic motif, minute 2:56 finds Ayana and company just blooming into a marvelous little whorl of lilt and honey. I’d post the tune here and urge you to visit cdBaby to buy your very own copy, but I’m a bit gunshy about bandwidth for the moment (see previous post.) For now, check out their MySpace page. “Ultraviolet” streams automatically upon entering. And then visit cdBaby to buy your very own copy. The rest of the EP shows serious promise. I’m partial to “Emergency Landing,” whose melodies and structure hit me where I like to be hit. The EP isn’t perfect, but that’s a good thing. What’s important is that it hints at some very cool things to come. It’s a very polished, slick affair, perhaps too much so, for my tastes. I keep wanting them to fray at the edges a bit, but I suspect, in time, they will. To me, this sounds as if the band is just dipping its foot in the pool and that true glory is on its way.