5...From the half-way mark to the very end, is the payoff. It's one giant coda, and each measure is slightly different from the others. I've heard it a hundred times so I know.

Just when you think you know how it will end, Andrews pulls the rug out from under you, laughing as you fall.

Perhaps it's more punchline than payoff.

1. Been wanting to write about Ethan for these last 15 years and finally, upon calling in sick to work for the second day in a row, I finally have the time. So let's hear it for the influenza virus.

I'll get to my favorite track in a moment, including why I like it so much, but first some general impressions (who was my favorite allied WWII general, woefully under-reported).

I've just been notified that these reviews cannot exceed 500 characters. So I shall number them and continue...

4...favorite. It starts out with what appears to be an Ode to Billy Joel (see what I done there?), big on peppy piano, light on percussion, it then starts in earnest with Andrews' trademark laissez-faire but never sounding improvisational.

The verses are where it makes its biggest investment in avoiding sentimentality. There are no grand melodic curlicues that are a dime a dozen in the R&B hip hop hellscape, just respect for the setup.

3...lounge-lizardy affair that doesn't mind concealing its point. Rather, it' gives you the space to make your own.

In fact, I enjoy Andrews' meandering ways in all his music because this is the crux of its appeal; he gives you enough material to enable you to make up your own value.

That kind of restraint and respect for subtlety is present in even his earliest stuff from the nineties and it's something I could never pull off.

So let's talk about The Twilight Sleep and why it is my...

2. Andrews represents the best of what I call the Zappa Element, that thing you hear in music that speaks to your inner-musician with equal parts force and grace. Unlike Zappa, who always seemed to me to be showing off a little, Andrews is more concerned about evoking a feeling.

And what is that feeling? Nostalgia without sentimentality. It's a very tricky wire on which to perform a two-step but I think he does it well.

Take Electricien Mechant (please!). It's a boozy-sounding...