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I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Nit­suh Abebe’s lat­est col­umn for Pitch­fork, “How to Be a Vam­pire.” In it, he turns the nos­tal­gia talk­ing point on its head, and rem­i­nisces over his approach to music in ado­les­cence, “lis­ten­ing like a vam­pire, lis­ten­ing because I desired to suck some­thing out of the music for my own pur­poses.” He con­sid­ers music’s role in the youth­ful search for iden­tity. That’s some­thing with which I can relate, but just as soon as I think Mr. Abebe is hold­ing up a mir­ror, I see all the let­ters back­wards. He writes in ital­ics, “I led myself to like the Cramps because I wanted to try being the sort of per­son who liked the Cramps.” My expe­ri­ence was oppo­site that; for exam­ple, I led myself to being the sort of per­son who wore work boots, thrifted Wran­glers, and pearl snaps because I fell in love with Uncle Tupelo’s fam­ily tree.

Essen­tially, I read the col­umn with a lot of eye scrunch­ing and head tilt­ing. I’m almost with him, espe­cially on his emo­tion­ally per­sua­sive con­clu­sion, but not quite. It seems like he’s long­ing for a second-best feel­ing. It seems like he’s leav­ing out that moment when a song, an album, or a sound is so imme­di­ate, so absorb­ing, that the music, itself, is the only thing that mat­ters. The best feel­ing for me is musi­cal rap­ture, when I’m caught up just as I am. That hap­pened when I was 13, and it’s still hap­pen­ing, two decades later.

Cymabls Eat Gui­tars’ debut album, Why There Are Moun­tains (audio: Spo­tify) is a good exam­ple. In 2009, it was a semi-early indi­ca­tor of ‘90s revival­ism. It’s a throw­back to “indie rock” (as opposed to “indie”) with obvi­ous influ­ences, and pos­si­bly the first “nos­tal­gia” piece that points to and draws from some­thing I actu­ally lived through with con­scious aware­ness. Maybe it’s my own fond famil­iar­ity for “this kind of music” that cre­ated a delay in rec­og­niz­ing what was going on, but I didn’t even think about Why There Are Moun­tains in terms of “revival­ism” and “nos­tal­gia” until I read the reviews and blogs.

I never had a chance to think about fash­ion and lifestyle trends. Even lis­ten­ing now, within the first sec­ond, I’m enthralled com­pletely. All it takes is that blast of gui­tars, drums, bass, and the cry, “Whoa-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh! Whoa-oh, ho, oh, ah-ah,” and I’m in a dif­fer­ent space. The album screams and whis­pers, stops and starts, and my body fol­lows suit. My head nods or bangs in time with the beat and in agree­ment with lyrics that mostly become glos­so­lalia, any­way. Dur­ing the 45 min­utes of Why There Are Moun­tains, I have no thoughts of get­ting some­thing from the music beyond what it offers on its own terms, nor of any pop-cultural trends and their soci­o­log­i­cal impli­ca­tions. I’m all reflexes, all move­ment, and my head­phones can’t turn up loud enough. Every­thing is vis­ceral and mys­ti­cal until the music stops and my ears are left ring­ing. I’m left want­ing nothing.