"Fade into You"

Mazzy Star
(Capitol, 1993)

The somber strum and gentle sob of David Roback's acoustic and electric slide guitars, the lonesome rustle of tambourine, a piano playing somewhere in the distant dark, and narcotic-voiced singer Hope Sandoval languidly drifting into dim view with a declaration that was part confiding, part carnal: "I wanna hold the hand inside you . . . " In just under five minutes, the haunting single that opened the California duo's second disc, So Tonight That I Might See, consummately captured the drowsy elegance of the post-Velvets "paisley underground" that had defined Roback's previous bands, Rain Parade and Opal, a decade earlier. It was worth the wait.

-- Jonathan Perry