*

There is no longer a discernible difference between background and foreground, between phatic expressions and informative ones. So if neither background or foreground, than music, in its ubiquitous phase, is more like a membrane of affective film that cleaves the desires of our private realities and public worlds to one another. From room to room, home to work, office to concert, lobby to pub, taxi to bed, we pass dreamily through several skins of musical "hellos".