Recorded live at Symphony Space in New York City,
I Often Dream of Trains in New York features
Robyn Hitchcock and multi-instrumentalists
Tim Keegan and
Terry Edwards re-creating the willfully eccentric Englishman's seminal 1983 post-
Soft Boys solo outing
I Often Dream of Trains in its entirety. In typical "
Hitchcockian" fashion, the singer enters the stage to the tinny crackle of a hand-held tape recorder playing "Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl," sits down at the piano, comically slows the pitch and begins playing the moody instrumental "Nocturne." What follows is a surprisingly deft and poignant retelling of his most beloved album, peppered with the usual Dada banter about tomatoes, microorganisms, and detectives. The two-disc set includes a DVD of the performance, as well as a surreal short film that features extended footage from the original video shoot for the title track backed by random bursts of disconnected music and dialogue.