There are but a few things in life I hold sacred. One, of course, is my lovely wife Coverton of whom we shall speak no more. Most of the others are glorious machines of the highest calibre and music that stirs the soul. Having previously written of my truest, most beautiful love for the G5, finest bird in the sky, I think it's time to take to the road in my favorite automobile, the fantastic piece of French metal known as the Citroen DS.

The car's name is a play on the French word for "goddess." It was designed by the Italian artist and sculptor Bertoni. The gorgeous machine is designed for maximum comfort and elegance. When I drive mine, I get this...special feeling. Just between you and me, I call it "long and low."

Why, just yesterday I was piloting the magnificent creature through the streets of Paris. I was teasing it a bit by gunning the throttle while we waited at traffic lights. I say 'we' because my cockpit was shared with a tanned Chilean dancer I was taking to Laussane with me for the weekend.

It was only a matter of time before we hit the open road, and I could at last satiate my DS. I could feel her yearning for me to pop the clutch and let her have it. All in good time, I whispered to myself, all in good time.

Ines give me a strange look. To quiet her down I passed her a cigarette and inserted a cassette. There's something about travelling at high velocity on a cloudy Friday afternoon in a long and low Citroen DS that just begs for discordant indie-pop from Quebec City. Appropriately, the cassette featured prominently just such a band: Blue Yolk.

Blue's Yolk's Soma album to be exact. The music is quiet and pensive, melodic and strange, rhythmic and sensitive, melancholy and nail-biting. There is something of the Sarah Records school of discordant pop in the formula, as well as echoes of Trans Am except with (but not always) fleeting, pleading vocals.

Sonic Youth comparisons are inevitable but largely regrettable-- there is something much more weighty to Blue Yolk's music; the lyrics are as important as the eerie, on-and-off guitars and powerful drum work.   Although I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing them, I imagine their live shows to be intense, cathartic affairs where guitars scream of lost love and vocals mourn for the departed beautiful smiles.

A particularly dark song came on, and I noticed a slight trembling of Ines' lip. In one motion I lowered the volume and placed my hand in her lap. 'There is so much pain in the world," she whispered, and a single tear escaped her eye and fled for the valley of her chin.

Her hand met mine and I squeezed it. "There there," I told her. "Look now, the sun is coming out, and we are half-way to my chalet. I have some wine and some lovely hashish waiting there, and my pool is heated year-round, as is my spa. Life couldn't be better."

"Tonight we will dine with friends in the village and later we'll swim like two fishes in life's glorious crystal bowl as the stars shine like your beautiful eyes above us."

She cooed and a delicious grin split her face. "Anything you say, Philippe," she breathed, and settled contentedly into the fine leather of the DS. That was what I liked to hear.

USOUNDS || 1999

Blue Yolk's Albums are available from Matlock Records, one of usounds favorite labels and run by the incomparable Alexandre Frenette.

Click Here to read Phillippe Coulette's brand-new inteview with Paul "Pan" Pangaro, one of the world's premeire Citroen enthusiasts.