There’s a movie I’ve been making in my head for nearly 15 years now. Plot, characters, locations, shot division, screenplay – everything’s pretty much been in place for a while, ready for when that golden opportunity arrives and someone forks over a potato sack of hard cash and says – Go. Go make your film.

One missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of my imaginary Palm d’Or winner has been – soundtrack. Unacceptable, since I have a soundtrack for every event of my life: every vacation, romantic evening, heartbreak, solitary auto/bus/train/plane ride, dish-washing stint, office day, unemployed day has had an appropriate song list running in the background. To me, nothing makes sense unless you can match it with a tune.

So when I tuned in to last week’s So You Think You Can Dance and heard Priscilla Ahn for the first time, I felt like I’d come full circle. I’d found the missing piece.

The song I heard is called Dream. As I described to a friend, the word that comes to mind when listening to Ahn is – wistful. Even when the song is happy. Apparently Dream is about dealing with cancer (not sure how true this is…it was one of the comments on the You Tube video) and it is a sad, hopeful song that’s lush with imagery. It’s soft, lilting and beautifully written. Priscilla Ahn’s voice is delicate yet powerful and goes straight for the gut.

Ahn’s music is simple but not sparse. The album A Good Day is full of melodic surprises – the kind you don’t expect from a low-profile, acoustic guitar+harmonica playing indie artist. Her songs are sometimes orchestral (specially tracks like Lullaby), highly visual and she does interesting things with layered vocals. But nothing’s ever too much or over the top and the ultimate star is definitely the songwriting.

Although she’s nowhere close to being a Debbie Downer, there’s a darkness here. And I think that’s what I respond to (besides the extreme mellowness – which is totally my kind of music). I’ve spent the last two nights falling asleep to her songs. They have seemed to find a home in my fantasy film script, fitting neatly into its nooks & crannys, breathing life into several scenes.

And as if that weren’t reason enough for me to love her, look what I found this morning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rmlaXwAyJY

A sign if there ever was one…

Have a Good Day.