Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

I sat on a plane in the sky, somewhere between Portland and San Francisco. My in-flight ginger ale bubbled nervously on the tray table in front of me. I was en route to Los Angeles by way of San Diego to visit friends. The trip was meant to be fun, a vacation to a part of the world with which I wasn’t familiar, but a small voice inside me begged for something greater, something more significant.

I pulled out my iPod and scrolled through to a record I hoped would calm my nerves: Julian Lynch’s latest album “Lines.” I sipped the soda and leaned back against the hard fabric seat. The music engulfed me at once:

Jangling guitars, thudding drums, discontent synth, and droning woodwinds, all coming together dramatically and at once, playing a chaotic melody of foreboding and fear. I swallowed hard. My ears popped. I stared ahead into a field of blue fabric as the music grew more intense. I was embarking on a journey of great importance, I realized, one with high stakes and dire consequences. The song thudded in step with my heart.

As I accepted this fate, this feeling of purpose, the music faded away. It gave rise to a soothing melody set to a confident rhythm–a simple, tribal sort of song cloaked in thin, whispered vocals, like a sheer cut of silk. It offered comfort in nature, in human nature, it seemed to say, in the raw, uncomfortable emotions I felt that, it didn’t acknowledge, it had made me feel in the first place.

And just as I had accepted that truth of the moment, the song broke down chaotically and faded away, evolving into something else entirely–another song with another emotional objective. While it should have been maddening, the music calmed me down, it showed me that the feelings I had were real, and that in spite of my anxiety there was peace to be found. It was heartening. It was beautiful. It was profound.

Such is the world of Julian Lynch.

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