November is the dreariest month. The first time I go home from work, in total darkness, after daylight saving time kicks in, is when I realise the coldest, darkest, and most bloody depressing months of the year have arrived. The rain that has been splattering Northern California over the last week doesn’t help much either.

With music being the key to keeping me sane when stuck indoors, recent CD acquisitions have yielded two more moments of musical epiphany. What are these? A couple of measures, a few seconds of music, maybe just a chord, something which just feels like the sun coming out from behind the clouds - exactly what I need on dark, damp autumn days. Today I was trying to come up with a partial list of such moments, presented forthwith:

• Shoot To Thrill, AC/DC, from the Back in Black album, at the 3:25 mark: about twenty seconds of spartan, pure harmony on a guitar (I think it’s Malcolm playing there) - just a brilliant sequence of D major V - IV - I progressions and nothing else;
• Piano Concerto No. 4, Rachmaninoff, bar 281 to the end of the 1st movement: big sweeping arpeggios in the piano, classic Rachmaninoff schmaltz in the rest of the orchestra. When I heard this the first time, I knew I had to play this piece;
• Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!), off Garbage’s latest album beautifulgarbage, between the 1:39 to 1:56 marks: I suppose I’m a sucker for church bells going off in the background;
• Devil & the Deep Dark Ocean, Nightwish, from the album Oceanborn, at the 3:48 mark: a moment of operatic, major-key, vocal harmony after nearly four minutes of dark, minor-key, Finnish-accented growling over heavy metal and thrash guitar. Yup, cool band.