I headed to The Record Archive (33 1/3 Rockwood St.) for the Opening Reception of Heather Ingram's Color Mania show. I also happened to want to pick up a couple CD's, so I did it all together.

Ingram's art in this show is a blend of colors in a uniformly random drip-line pattern. The key is in the colors — I found one piece particularly appealing for that reason. I didn't make much more of a connection than purely aesthetic, however.

About a year ago, the Dryden screened Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields. I was kind of suckered in to the sound of The Magnetic Fields, and when I saw a semi-positive review of the new album on the AV Club website, I decided to go get Love at the Bottom of the Sea.

But while there, I was walking around looking aimlessly — looking for that which I didn't know I was looking for. Then I passed the $1 Used CD bins and looked straight at the self-titled CD from Julia's Star.

Holy crap. I lost that CD about 10 years ago — I loaned it to someone and pretty much lost touch with them right afterward. I suspect that I was holding the actual copy that I lost. I had seen Julia's Star perform in 1999 at Milestone's and picked up their CD at some point (I have an old e-mail where I lament, "I still don't find all that impressive…not my kind of music more than anything else" so I don't know why I ever got it.) I recall that Matt Blanchard was in the band (playing a synthesizer as I recall) although I knew him better as a saxophonist in the ska band 5Head and in the infectious experimental jazz band Jerseyband. In fact, in the aforementioned e-mail, I had seen Julia's Star play on the same bill as 5Head.

Nonetheless, had I owned the CD all these years, I probably would have taken it for granted along with lots of other bands I've seen over the years. I mean I'm sure I would have liked it, but since I had lost it, it always had that fond je ne sais quoi of having disappeared. Funny how listening now, I instantly recalled the songs and the crisp lead vocals of Julia Gray over a couple synthesizers, drums, and a DJ — reminiscent of other late-1990's bands like Portishead.