Part of me is wondering one thing, this overcast afternoon, and part of me is wondering something else. There's a pretty good chance that there are other parts of me that are wondering other things as well. This me is lights on, 24 hours a day, it seems sometimes - when sleep is rough in coming and when you can't help but think that there's a whole family of rabbits or squirrels twitchingly, nervously scurrying about in your head and chest, running everything. While listening to London band Channel Cairo though, I'm able to take an inventory somewhat more easily than on most occasions. The one part of me is wondering how hard it would be to learn how to operate a hot air balloon. It seems like something that would be good to be doing, while listening to this band play. The air would get milder and then colder, the further we got up in that basket and the views would be tremendous. There would be this sensation of nearly being out-of-control, even while you held the controls, whatever it takes to maneuver that bulbous craft. You'd just cut through the low-hanging sky, giving those below a colorful obstruction to peer up at. It would feel like a bit of a laze, but a nerve-wracking one. It's not dissimilar to the way that Joshua Bowyer, Channel Cairo's lead singer writes - with something of a batch of tension built into his chill. Another part of me wonders why I haven't built a porch onto my house yet, why I haven't bought myself a rocking chair and just dedicated an hour every night - on the good ones, on the stormy and dark ones - to just sitting out there with the bugs and the echoes, rocking away. It makes me feel like I should take up pipe-smoking, just to see what it's like, if it agrees with me. We get caught up in these wheels of life, as they move and they churn away. We gasp and we stammer and we feel it all out. We sense the repetitiveness and it's part of the soothing vibration that coaxes us. Bowyer sings, "Every night goes over and over again," giving us a bit of the conversation about the inconclusive nature of all that we experience. Channel Cairo's music - in its entirety is an extension of that. They write that their influences are, " The golden age of travel, touring as a child, animals like teddy bears, propulsive engines, the coming of age, a dog called Huntely, an airline ran by animals." It makes all the sense in the world and none whatsoever. Isn't that exactly how we all have it? It's nice to just take it all in with a pipe, a rocking chair and a hot air balloon.