I debated which video to use, Tim Buckley‘s or This Mortal Coil’s. I decided on the latter, mainly because I wanted to expose you to the Starsailor album. Also because, well, hairdos. Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie are terribly represented in this sappy MTV video: The fashion and staging are hilarious. But don’t be put off by the visuals; their version of this song is only matched by Tim’s a-bit-less-accessible original.

This Mortal Coil released the single “16 Days / Gathering Dust” in 1983 and the entire 12″ was an underground smash, making the record label 4AD another seminal cultural / musical / design force in the early 80s and, apparently, well into the 90s and 2000s. Pixies? Dry Cleaning? Aldous Harding? Who knew?

Starsailor was so strange and quirky I didn’t know how to listen to it at first, but the longer I did, the more sense it made. It’s fascinating and beautiful, full of authentic soul and passion. It deserves the reputation it’s earned from the musical cognoscenti through the decades, though, perversely, this very fact put me off of it for years.