The first album I ever owned was the soundtrack to Ghostbusters.

It was on cassette, and it came in a red plastic case. It was chock full of artists I’d never heard of before or since (Alessi? Mick Smiley?), but I loved all these songs. Not because I thought they were very good songs, but because they reminded me of Ghostbusters, which was for a time my very favorite movie.

I’d taped it off the television with our new top-loading VCR – cutting-edge technology in the early ‘80s – and I obsessively watched it, to the point where I had the movie memorized. (Imagine my surprise when I saw the unedited version on HBO. For years I thought the line was “I’ve seen stuff that will turn you white.”) I would play Ghostbusters in the back yard, wearing a backpack and wielding a garden implement, pretending to shoot and trap specters.

As I grew older, I realized the wealth of comedy talent that had participated in Ghostbusters. Not only was it my first exposure to the great Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, but I’d come to realize that the guy who played Egon Spengler was kind of a genius. Harold Ramis had co-written Ghostbusters, along with Animal House and Caddyshack and Stripes, and had directed National Lampoon’s Vacation. If you’re a fan of silly, smart-dumb comedies, that’s a ridiculously awesome resume.

But Ramis’ most enduring achievement, at least to me, is Groundhog Day, the ultimate Bill Murray comedy. Ramis co-wrote and directed the story of a man living the same day again and again until he gets it right, and he infused it with a darkness and an intelligence that sets it above even its pretty brilliant premise. He drew from Murray what was, at that time, his finest performance, world-weary and biting. Groundhog Day remains a favorite.

Harold Ramis, a lifelong denizen of Chicago, died on Feb. 24 from complications associated with an autoimmune disease he fought for four years. He was 69 years old. The 12-year-old version of me, the one with the backpack and the rake, running around the yard chasing ghosts, thanks him immensely. He was quite a talent.

* * * * *

Cast your mind back, back, back to 1994. It’s the heyday of grunge and flannel, and the waning days of MTV as a musical force. Imagine you’re watching that channel – yes, they used to play music videos, like, all the time – and amidst the angsty Alice in Chains and Soundgarden clips there’s this… weird one. It looks like it was shot on a camcorder, it stars this lanky guy with long hair and a ratty t-shirt, and it features kids dancing in a graveyard and a coffin making the rounds by itself through a city at night. The song is a loopy mix of acoustic slide guitar and a drum loop, with a chorus half-sung in Spanish. It’s remarkably strange.

The song, of course, is “Loser,” and if you’d predicted in 1994 that its author, Beck Hansen, would one day be one of the most overhyped artists on the planet, you’d have been laughed out of the record store. (Yes, they had those in ‘94 too.) But here we are, 20 years later, and Beck’s new album, Morning Phase, has arrived surrounded by a tsunami of best-of-the-year predictions and manufactured excitement.

To be fair, Beck sort of did this to himself. In the two decades since “Loser,” he’s established himself as an unpredictable, yet remarkably consistent artist. He’s a chameleon, ducking in and out of styles with seeming ease, and when he’s not creating collages out of all of pop culture on records like Odelay and The Information, he’s sending up Prince on Midnite Vultures, or dabbling in his own twisted form of the blues on Guero. But many would say his finest achievement was 2002’s Sea Change, which found him putting aside all of those colorful costumes and singing from the heart, over stripped-down acoustic heartbreakers.

To top all that off, Beck’s been absent for the last five years. His previous record, Modern Guilt, had all the hallmarks of a contractual obligation – it was short, simple and uninspired, playing like a collection of b-sides. In the meantime, he’s dabbled in online-only pursuits (like his series of full-album covers), his only physical product being last year’s Song Reader, an album released as sheet music. Fascinating though it was, it wasn’t a new Beck album.

Morning Phase certainly is, but I would bet even Beck was surprised by the hype that surrounded it. He knew what kind of record he’d made, after all – this collection most closely resembles Sea Change, but is even softer, wispier and more delicate. It’s entirely acoustic-based, every song rising up on a slow, deliberate strum or finger-pick pattern. There’s a ‘70s folk vibe to much of it, and the entire thing is coated in a sheen of reverb, lending it a spectral quality. It fills whatever room it’s played in with warmth and soft light.

Like Sea Change, this is a mournful record, full of the left and the leaving. “Say Goodbye” is about doing just that, and the gorgeous “Blue Moon” opens with the line “I’m tired of being alone.” It is Beck’s loneliest album, meant to be played while rocking yourself to sleep, or waiting for the phone to ring. It’s also his prettiest – even more than Sea Change, this is an album about how lovely it is, and none of these 11 songs (and two interludes) breaks that spell. You can get lost in this, drown in it, and die happy.

Morning Phase is lush – strings weave in and out, Roger Manning (of Jellyfish fame) provides subtle piano and keyboard accents, and Stephanie Bennett’s harp appears on more than one track. That it remains quiet and affecting throughout is a triumph of production, which Beck handled himself – this is one of the best-sounding records I’ve heard in a long time. None of that would matter if the songs were not terrific, and for the most part, they are – the album tends to run together into a gauzy whole, but the dense strings of “Wave,” the swaying “Blackbird Chain” and the majestic piano-driven closer “Waking Light” join “Morning” and “Blue Moon” as standouts.

The news of a sonic sequel to Sea Change has left some people suspicious, wondering if Beck really means this music. I suppose a certain amount of that comes with the territory when you make your name as a merry pop culture prankster. Those who prize authenticity above all else will approach Morning Phase with one eyebrow cocked, wondering if this folksiness is yet another suit Beck is trying on, another affectation without investment.

I’ve asked the same questions, but as I said in my Sea Change review, it doesn’t really matter. You can’t prove authenticity anyway – even the most earnest-sounding singer-songwriter could be lying to you – so it means very little. If Beck is pretending to be a singer of heartfelt songs, he’s doing it very well – so well, in fact, that the difference is negligible. A song like “Turn Away” moves me, those high and sweet harmonies hitting me exactly right, and “Waking Light” is so pretty I want to cry. That’s what matters.

Morning Phase is a triumph, one of the finest records Beck has made. It’s the sound of someone seizing every opportunity to add something beautiful to the world. I can’t speak for the hype merchants – I’m not sure why this album arrived with such a head of steam, given its delicate nature. I can only say that it’s as good as I hoped it would be. If I had a time machine, and I could bring this album back to my 1994 self and play it for him, it would make his head explode. No one could have predicted that the “Loser” guy would one day make records as lovely as this. But then, trying to predict what Beck will do next is a fool’s game. For me, I’m just enjoying the ride.

Welcome back, sir. And thanks for Morning Phase. It’s terrific.

* * * * *

Next week, Neneh Cherry. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am, and Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This week, I got to see the current incarnation of Zappa Plays Zappa take a dingy stage in Joliet, Illinois, and blow my fragile little mind.

I caught the inaugural tour in 2006, at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis, and it remains one of the finest shows I’ve ever experienced. The current band is leaner – six players instead of eight, and none of the Zappa alumni who joined that first worldwide jaunt. (They included Steve Vai, Terry Bozzio and Napoleon Murphy Brock. Yeah, it was a great show.) In many ways, though, this latest tour is closer to Dweezil Zappa’s original vision – it’s all about the music, not the players. Dweezil himself is the most well-known musician on stage, and no one showboats – it’s all about Frank Zappa’s phenomenal compositions.

This time out, Dweezil and company have decided to play all of 1974’s Roxy and Elsewhere, to commemorate its 40th anniversary. Roxy was a live album, in as much as any Zappa album was truly live, but it was almost entirely new material. And what material – some of Frank’s most difficult and melodic songs are here, including the “Village of the Sun/Echidna’s Arf/Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing” suite, the amazing “Cheepnis” and the damn-near-impossible “Be-Bop Tango.” And after playing all of that, the band jammed for another 90 minutes, pulling out hidden gems like “Teen-Age Prostitute” and the never-played “I Come From Nowhere,” as well as chestnuts like “Cosmik Debris.”

My favorite moment, however, came with the first encore – a haunting, glorious rendition of “Watermelon in Easter Hay,” one of Zappa’s finest excursions on the guitar. Dweezil has fundamentally rewritten his own style for the ZPZ project, taking on many aspects of his father’s wildly unorthodox guitar playing. But “Watermelon” is perhaps Frank’s most straightforwardly beautiful piece, and Dweezil played the hell out of it. It was magical.

And in that moment, the true purpose of the Zappa Plays Zappa shows stood out – they’re a love letter from a son to his departed father. At the center of all these songs about penguins in bondage and terrible sci-fi movies and flim-flam gurus beats a loving heart. These songs are Frank Zappa’s legacy, and ZPZ is Dweezil’s celebration of it. For me, hearing music this difficult played this well is a treat. For Dweezil, it’s a heartfelt duty, making sure new generations can hear this music played properly and lovingly. It’s a living tribute, and a wonderful one.

And it made me think of Lost in the Trees.

Two years ago, that band released their second album, A Church That Fits Our Needs. It was written in the wake of the suicide of frontman Ari Picker’s mother, on the day of Picker’s wedding. It’s a lush, haunting work, full of love and pain – you could hear Picker working through this most impossible of heartaches before your ears. And while it’s a whirlwind of confusion and bewilderment, asking questions with no answers, it’s also a loving monument to a troubled yet beautiful woman. It’s a singular, astonishing work, a tidal wave of grief in 45 perfectly rendered minutes.

A Church That Fits Our Needs is a sterling example of forging art from pain, and particularly the pain of losing a parent. It was an important album for Picker to make, and I am beyond grateful that he made it – it ascended to the top of my 2012 list, and remains one of the most moving records I’ve ever heard. In some ways, though, it’s too perfect. It’s a closed system, an endless loop of mourning, and it offers no way forward for Picker and his band.

On some level, he must have realized that, because the third Lost in the Trees album, Past Life, takes several steps toward sustainability. The ghost of his mother still haunts this record, but that’s all she is here – a ghost, a memory, a beautiful and hazy piece of the past that is slowly, ever slowly letting go. And Picker is moving on. This album finds him stripping Lost in the Trees back to a five-piece, instead of the eight-piece that made the first two, and writing simpler, less ornate pieces to accompany the change.

In many ways, they sound like a band here for the first time. Opener “Excos” has ties to the old sound, all pianos, strings and horns, but then the title track glides in on a programmed drum beat and a chiming electric guitar and, well, little else. Picker’s high, distinctive voice anchors this new sound to the past, but otherwise, it’s a completely new Lost in the Trees. And that ethos continues throughout this record – songs are short and relatively simple, arrangements are still lovely but more minimal, and the music never reaches for the same otherworldly heights that Church ascended. It’s less cathartic, more grounded.

I think that’s an important step for Picker and his band, and Past Life is a necessary record for them to have made. It’s almost unfair to relate it to the prior efforts – they stand as monuments to a time, a place, a feeling, where this one has more modest aims. It’s still very good, even if it isn’t trying to move you in the same ways. It does achieve its own kind of transcendence – witness “Lady in White,” a song literally about being haunted. Its delicate piano melody and Picker’s spectral voice lend it a ghostly quality, which is quite appropriate: “Always, your eyes always are repeating white light, always, you always meet me in the next life…”

Many of these songs, like “Daunting Friend” and the bare-bones “Rites,” feel like Picker’s version of pop, built around small, repetitive riffs and melodies. But while Past Life may seem less immediately impressive, it is still achingly beautiful. Listen to “Glass Harp,” built on a feather-light ripple of pianos. “It’s not your fault, be still in my arms, it’s not your fault,” Picker sings, as the subtle horns provide airy accents. “The earth has overgrown, the sea, it will part, it’s not your fault…”

Once again, Picker ends an album with a bit of an anticlimax. “Upstairs” is a short, barely-there piece played on electric guitar and little else. But emotionally, it’s the right conclusion. “And where will I go now, when my world is cold and broken,” Picker asks, before pleading, “Don’t let me fall apart.”

Past Life is about answering the first, and ensuring the second. It’s about providing his band a foundation to build upon, and himself a way past the crushing death of his mother. She’s still here, around the edges of this album, but for the first time, you can see how the band can move past her and live on. While it’s not nearly the achievement Church was, it’s in many ways more important, more vital. It accomplishes something remarkable – it remains a tribute, while moving forward, slowly and surely.

* * * * *

While we’re on the subject of tributes to departed parents, let’s talk about Jonatha Brooke.

For a singer and songwriter of her caliber, Brooke has spent far too long on the fringes. From her days in The Story to her expansive solo career, she’s never made a bad record. She writes literate, mature folk-pop that never disappoints melodically, and sings it with grace. Most recently, she turned in the best of the slew of Woody Guthrie projects, in which she wrote new music to some of Guthrie’s unused lyrics. Hers was called The Works, and it was remarkable.

That was six years ago. In the years since, Brooke has been taking care of her mother, who suffered from cancer and Alzheimer’s. She kept her company and comfortable in the final years of her life, and while doing so, she wrote a series of songs about the experience. And now she’s assembled those songs into a new album and a one-woman play, called My Mother Has 4 Noses. Stripped of context, this title is terrible, but when you know where it comes from – Brooke’s mother was a Christian Scientist, and refused treatment for the cancer that spread across her face, reshaping her nose as it ate away at her visage – it takes on a new dimension.

I haven’t seen the play, though it’s drawing raves. But I have heard the album, and it’s one of Brooke’s very best, a deeply personal yet fully accessible set of tremendous pop songs. Brooke provides short notes with each tune, but you won’t need them. The songs make their intentions plain. And mostly, they’re about remembering the joys, living through the pain, and pleading for more time.

The album is bookended by “Are You Getting This Down,” in which her mother calls her by her nickname “Boolie” and encourages her to write the very play the song opens. “Are you getting this down, these dark and crazy scenes, are you getting this down, the laughter in between…” It’s a perfect note to start on, as Brooke weaves a story of watching her mother drift further from her, and then, in 2010, pulling her closer, moving her into Brooke’s New York apartment. “What Do I Know” is the most clever and haunting use of that phrase I’ve heard, exploring what it means to lose one’s memory, and “What Was I Thinking” relates the move to New York with dark humor.

There is anger in “My Misery,” but pure longing in “How Far You’d Go for Love.” The album gets more honest and painful as it goes, and I don’t think Brooke has written a more achingly beautiful song than “Time,” her prayer for just a few more days with her mother. “Please don’t come today, tomorrow’s not good either, ‘cause I know it will mean forever,” she sings, over a rolling percussion line and a deep and subtle string section. By the time she gets to a song her mother wrote, fittingly called “Mom’s Song,” it’s almost too much. Yet there is hope – Brooke sings of starting again in “Scars,” and lives out her mother’s legacy of love in “Superhero.” “Could it be you who rescued me,” she sings. “Surely nothing up your sleeve but love…”

Brooke has always been terrific, but this album is something special. It hurts like no other record she’s made, and likewise rings out with more joy and hope than anything else she’s done. I wish she’d picked a different title, since most people will probably dismiss it (and the amateurish cover) without really listening. But you should really listen to this. I’ve been a Jonatha Brooke fan for almost 20 years, and with My Mother Has 4 Noses, she’s moved me in ways she never has. It’s a lovely remembrance, and a wonderful piece of work. Her mother would be proud.

Next week, Beck, among others. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am, and Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m having a complicated reaction to the new Neil Finn album.

This doesn’t happen to me very often. I’m usually happy to stick with my first impression of an album, as subsequent listens deepen either my appreciation or my disinterest. But I have heard Dizzy Heights, the third solo record by New Zealand’s finest, probably two dozen times now, trying to figure out exactly how I feel about it. Just when I feel it start to click, it slips away. But then, just as I’m ready to write it off, something strikes me in a new way.

I’ve become obsessed with Dizzy Heights, but not because I love it. I keep listening because I’m trying desperately to understand it. And not just my own reaction, which is confusing enough. I want to know why Neil Finn made this record, what he sees as its virtues and its failings, why he chose to go in this particular direction. Thus far, the intention of the artist remains particularly inscrutable, though I do have some theories. So I keep on listening.

I should mention that I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. If the words “Neil” and “Finn” were not emblazoned on the cover of Dizzy Heights (albeit scrunched into one word), I would have set this aside ages ago, satisfied that I’d heard all there was to hear, and it just didn’t work for me. But this is Neil Finn, one of the finest songwriters I’ve ever encountered. I first heard Finn’s work when almost everyone my age did – when MTV began playing the videos for “Something So Strong” and “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” from the first Crowded House album. And I fell in love.

Little did I know then that the fine-voiced frontman had a long history with his brother’s band, Split Enz. Neil joined in 1977 and recorded seven terrific little pop records with them. By the time of 1984’s swan song See Ya Round, Finn had proven himself as a songwriter, and when he formed Crowded House in 1985, his talents really started to shine. Those first four Crowded House albums are unimpeachable to me. They contain so many perfect pop numbers, so many songs that are textbook examples of how to write this kind of song well. My favorite of the four is Woodface, on which Neil welcomed brother Tim Finn to the fold, and the pair came up with 14 absolutely flawless tunes.

And so I’ve let some things slide since then, because those four albums mean so much to me. It was a while before I had to – Neil Finn’s first two solo albums, Try Whistling This and One Nil, were superb, and his two albums with Tim as the Finn Brothers were pretty good as well. So I try not to think about the fact that Finn resurrected Crowded House in 2006, and sullied the name with two middling blah-pop albums. And it’s all I can do to forget 2011’s Pajama Club, a waste of disc space that sounds like it was much more fun to make than it was to listen to. And it pains me to recall that the last truly great Neil Finn song I heard was “Turn and Run,” 13 years ago.

I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps Finn’s muse contracted some kind of wasting disease, and slowly faded away. Perhaps he just grew old and complacent. But I listen to those latter-day Crowded House albums, and I just die inside. A song as typical as “Twice if You’re Lucky” is a standout here, a stronger piece than any of the others that surround it. It’s such a shame to hear Neil Finn sing material like this, especially live, when he really tries to sell it. He’s not resting on his laurels, despite the fact that his laurels are phenomenal. He’s putting his back into writing new material. It’s just not very good.

So what does a former genius do once his muse has died? Apparently, something like Dizzy Heights. After this, there’s no arguing that Neil Finn is simply in a slump, or doesn’t realize the sheer gulf between his old material and his new stuff. I think he does. I think he realizes that his muse has abandoned him, and the 11 songs on this new album find him working to the absolute top of his abilities. Needless to say, they’re not anywhere near the (ahem) dizzy heights he used to attain on a regular basis.

But Finn made a surprising move, one that sets Dizzy Heights above anything he’s done in a long time – he hired Dave Fridmann to produce. Fridmann is best known as the man behind the boards for most of the Flaming Lips catalog. When a band wants to weird up – as OK Go did in 2010, for example – they call Fridmann. He is a sound-over-substance kind of guy, but his sounds are astonishing. Look at the last couple Flaming Lips albums. It’s fair to say that the band didn’t show up with any real song ideas, but the remarkable sonics make up for it, and set a foreboding, almost terrifying mood.

Dizzy Heights doesn’t quite do that, but its sheer sound is remarkable, so far outside what Finn has dabbled in before. I’m still catching new sonic details in this thing, more than 20 listens in, and the production carries even the weakest of Finn’s songs. (Well, except for one, but we’ll get to that.) This feels like a conscious choice to me, like Finn knows he can no longer play to his melodic strengths, so he’s inventing new ones for himself.

In a strange way, the simple and repetitive songs on Dizzy Heights cast the last decade of Finn’s work in a new light. It’s almost as if he’s been working towards these atmospheric, pulsing, almost melody-free songs for a long time, and he’s finally arrived. Take a trifle like “Better Than TV.” Had this been recorded with just guitars, bass and drums, it would have been unforgivably boring – the melody is repetitive, the song goes nowhere, there’s no real chorus. But with the swirling strings and sonic frippery floating in and out, it’s never less than interesting. In fact, it feels catchier than it is.

Much of Dizzy Heights goes this way. The title track is a little bit of soul that never really takes off, but the airy keyboards and zippy violins elevate it. “Flying in the Face of Love” is just a bass line and little else, but Finn and Fridmann paint a pretty dazzling picture around it. “White Lies and Alibis” begins with more than a minute of atmosphere before the low-key electric piano and ride cymbals come in, and while the song doesn’t do very much, the strings, percussion, strange backing vocals and left-field effects make it a striking listen.

Nowhere is this technique more apparent than on “Divebomber,” inexplicably the first track released from this album. I’ve heard it described as anti-music, and that’s not far off the mark. It’s almost deliberately off-putting, a strange mixture of Flaming Lips keyboards, effects and strings, topped off with the most ear-aching falsetto vocals I’ve heard in years. It achieves its own strange power by the midpoint, but for most of its running time, it’s nigh-unlistenable garbage. Finn is unaccountably proud of this mess, as if it proves that he’s not slipping into a comfortable old age, but “Divebomber” is quite possibly the worst song he’s ever foisted on the public.

Things can only get better from there, and in the album’s second half, Finn does pull out some fairly good songs, from the thudding “Pony Ride” to the endearingly straightforward “Recluse.” The best of these is “In My Blood,” buried at track 10. It has a chorus you’ll remember, a twisty and curious verse, and this album’s signature stunning production. It’s the song on which everything comes together, the closest Finn has come to penning a classic in more than a decade. It’s over quickly, though, and the album concludes with a confused muddle called “Lights of New York.” (It’s kind of amazing that Finn’s vocal can be so far off the melody here, considering this song doesn’t have one.)

The juxtaposition of “In My Blood” and “Lights of New York” sums up this album for me. One minute it’s compelling in ways I can barely understand, the next it’s leaving me cold. Here is its central paradox: Finn sounds re-energized here – limbered up and at fighting weight for the first time in many years – in every way except the songwriting. I want to love these songs, because this album was clearly a labor of love for its author. But the songs keep me at arm’s length. They resoundingly fail to live up to the genius that wrote them.

So the secret, then, to enjoying Dizzy Heights is to forget that it’s a Neil Finn album. Had this been the debut of a new singer-songwriter with an ear for elaborate arrangements, I’d be praising its potential, while warning him to steer clear of the impulses that birthed “Divebomber.” And I’d be looking forward to subsequent records, and to following this new artist’s career. Divorced from expectations, Dizzy Heights is mostly not bad. Much of it is perfectly listenable.

But alas, there’s Finn’s name on the cover, and his picture on the gatefold. It’s inescapable. This is a Neil Finn album, and while it’s the best thing he’s done in some time, it still falls short of what I’m now coming to realize was his best work. Dizzy Heights is the sound of a man realizing that his muse has failed him, and figuring out where to go next. And while he’s chosen an interesting path, and made probably the best album he could, it’s still not enough to overshadow the fact that the songs aren’t flowing like they used to. Dizzy Heights is both a sign of a sad decline, and a testament to how well Finn has compensated for it. I will no doubt keep listening. Which, in itself, is a bit of a victory.

Next week, Lost in the Trees. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am, and Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

In October of 2008, I got in my car and drove 30 miles to the one theater within any reasonable distance that was playing Synecdoche, New York.

In retrospect, I should not have been surprised that the film didn’t open in every multiplex in the country. It was the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, a screenwriter working on levels that most wordsmiths will never reach. His previous films included Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, all surreal and cerebral fantasies, none of which set the box office on fire. And its star, if one could ever really call him that, was the amazing Philip Seymour Hoffman, an actor unconcerned with playing to the crowd – he always used his craft to get at real pain, real beauty and real truth.

Synecdoche, if you have not seen it, is a devastating examination of art as a futile means of encapsulating life. Its script is like a math equation, systematically removing light and hope and leaving you with a despair you cannot even name. And Hoffman’s towering performance, one of the best I have ever seen, drives every nail into your heart. He is fearless and free of vanity. No one else could have played this part, could have grounded this film the way he did.

The theater I saw Synecdoche, New York in was almost completely empty. When the film’s gut-punch of a final scene finished unspooling, and the credits began rolling, I couldn’t move. I had been worked over emotionally, drained and refilled and drained again. I groggily looked around, meeting the eyes of the three other people sharing that experience, and saw they were all struggling to recover from the film as well. It took a while before we could speak. And then, we talked about what we’d seen, about how this film tore us open and left us bleeding and dying inside.

And of course, we talked about Hoffman. His towering performance in Synecdoche, New York may be the best of an extraordinary career. But then, there are so many great roles to choose from. Just recently, he was riveting as Lancaster Dodd in The Master. There’s Father Brendan Flynn in Doubt. Gust Avrakotos in Charlie Wilson’s War. Truman Capote in Capote, for which he won the Academy Award. Allen in Happiness. Joseph Turner White in State and Main. I’m even excited to see what he does with Plutarch Heavensbee in the next two (already shot) Hunger Games movies.

Still, bringing Caden Cotard to life in Synecdoche may be his biggest achievement as an actor. But it isn’t my favorite.

I’m always going to be most partial to Hoffman’s absolute embodiment of Lester Bangs in Almost Famous, a movie that (for obvious reasons) is very close to my heart. “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool,” he says at one point, and the truth of that line reverberates within me. My whole life is about being uncool enough to love something as daft as music completely and without reservation. I adore that film, and I adore Hoffman’s performance in it.

Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of the best actors I’ve ever had the privilege of watching, the kind of actor who could make even the most unpromising premise feel worth seeing because of his presence. He died on Sunday of an apparent heroin overdose. His death has launched a thousand blogs about the nature of addiction and the responsibility of role models. That seems crass to me. All I want to say is this: I will miss his work very much. May he rest in peace.

* * * * *

It’s hard to get invested in side projects.

So many of them are one-offs, quick collaborations or stylistic diversions that serve more of a purpose for the artists than for the listener. My collection is littered with orphaned records made by artists with rewarding and ongoing main gigs, little whims intended to scratch a certain itch. Sometimes, like Adam Schlesinger’s work in Ivy, they keep going long enough to be interesting in their own right. But most of the time, they’re curiosities, good for one or two listens that will, at best, add color to the main canon.

But every once in a while, a side project will find a groove, and become something special enough that it eclipses an artist’s main gig. That’s what has just happened with Broken Bells, the collaborative project that teams prolific producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton with the leader of the Shins, James Mercer. The Shins started out as one of the most promising new bands, with a fine mix of indie-pop rawness and Brian Wilson melodies. But sadly, with 2012’s staid Port of Morrow, the band appeared to be running out of gas. Mercer sounded tired and spent on that album, a solo record in all but name, and the paucity of memorable songs remains difficult to reconcile.

Mercer and Burton had issued the first Broken Bells album two years prior to Port of Morrow, and it barely made an impression. But now, here’s the follow-up, After the Disco, and somehow, the pair has turned this collaboration into something really special. Part of it is focus – this record feels instantly more committed and complete than the first, with a full-blooded sound miles away from the Shins-with-drum-machines feel of the debut. And part of it is the songs. After the Disco is packed top to bottom with superb, shimmering songs.

You know you’re in for something more than a side project from the first track, the six-minute “Perfect World.” Burbling to life on simmering synths that give way to a galloping beat, the song sets Mercer’s high, lovely voice up against me-decade keyboards and blazing guitar. The extended coda is massive, nearly monolithic, the synth line cutting through the oceans of backing vocals. It feels like a proper 1980s epic.

The quality never flags from there. The title track and “Holding On for Life” find Mercer channeling his inner Gibb brother, while Burton lays down convincingly hip-shaking grooves. “The Changing Lights” charges forward with confidence (and a great hook), “Control” could be a long-lost Blondie song, and “No Matter What You’re Told” brings a brashness that Mercer’s rarely shown us. The record ends with a string-laden lament called “The Remains of Rock and Roll” that is a great summation of this new sound, recasting the pair as modern Bee Gees. It’s excellent.

After the Disco is a real surprise, that rarest of side projects that sounds like a full-time endeavor. Burton proves here why he’s so in demand as a producer and collaborator, and Mercer turns out melodies and vocals that put the last Shins record to shame. I sincerely hope they keep this going, because they’re on to something here, and they’re clearly sparking. The Shins may never release another album for all I care, but I’m already looking forward to new Broken Bells music.

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That’s all I have in me this week. Apologies for the short column. Next week, Neil Finn and a couple of piano-poppers. Leave a comment on my blog at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tm3am, and Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

See you in line Tuesday morning.