>The brain consumes 20% of the oxygen a human breathes. At least that’s what Wikipedia says, so you may as well invent your own fact and the chances of it being true are about the same. Anyway – the point is that brains are bewilderingly impressive, and do remarkable things. Issac Newton’s brain, for example, spewed out the three laws of motion and the theory of Universal Gravitation while he was dozing under a tree. Or something.

Meanwhile, us mere mortals, incapable of generating ideas that shape entire societies for hundreds of years, are left with all that brain power punching and flailing in a million different directions at once, only occasionally revealing hitherto unknown abilities. Unfortunately, my special brain-skill appears to be playing crap songs on loop in my head for hours on end. The nadir of this anti-Zen skill consisted of a whole weekend wandering around Barcelona humming, out loud, the chorus from Eddie Murphy and Rick James‘ half-hellish, half-genius 80′s hit ‘My Girl Wants to Party All The Time’, confirming locals’ suspicions that all tourists are idiots.

While I was in France recently, this idiotic superpower kicked in again, but this time – bliss! – it finally picked a good song, Little Patton by ex-New Band of The Day, The Seedy Seeds, and I spent a whole two weeks happily whistling to myself. Perhaps my relentless pursuit of new bands is specifically so that I can push all the crappy old songs out of my head with good new ones. If so, then Today’s New Band is another step in the right direction.

They’re That’s The Spirit, they’re from Canada, and they write songs that are gentle, melodic, mind-massages. Moreover, the songs are fitting for the time of year – when summer is drifting lazily into autumn, and a feeling of mild hopelessness prevails. Always Coming Back is chiming, bright and understated, and Every City has a strange yearning feeling written large; its clanging guitar sounds the pen, and your woozy mind the A4 sheet of notepaper.

That’s The Spirit‘s songs are the ones you’d want to listen to on a drizzly day, as you doze cozily inside, watching the outside world disappear in grey watery nothingness. Listen to their songs here, and drift slowly into a womb-like comfortable slumber.