February: I hear this new Angel Olsen album Burn Your Fire For No Witness is really great. Getting rave reviews, acclaim, love, and all the rest. I listen to a snippet here and there, and even get as far as adding it to my eMusic “Save for later” list.

Five months later, and I still haven’t pushed it to the top of the “Listen to this or be sorry” pile.

I feel so lonesome, I could cry
But instead I'll pass the time
Sitting lonely with somebody, lonely too
Well, there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do

This literally makes no sense beyond the freaky phenomenon by which an album can sometimes just put up its own force-field and I move along to the next in line. This then sets off an unfortunate chain reaction whereby the next time it hoves into view I’m slightly less inclined to give it a chance, having already passed on it once. And so on and so forth.

There’s no reason to me telling you all this beyond the fact that when I do eventually find my way out of this trap, whether it’s after a week or twenty years, I still get the same thrill from listening to something like Hi-Five for the first time - feeling the hit of its country-gal gone fuzz-box, rolling around in the dirt. And then the same sense of discovery, albeit followed by the painful realisation that a Top Gear presenter experiences when he realises Jeremy Clarkson has beaten him to the finishing post.

Except that unlike Hammond or May, I get to listen to Hi-Five and all of Burn Your Fire For No Witness without having to put up with even a single moment of Clarkson’s crowing.

Which is lucky for me.