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By PAUL ZOLLO
 oredom excites imagination," goes the quote from Dostoevsky that Ainjel Emme has posted on her excellent album, Heartache Is Boring. He also wrote that excessive consciousness is a disease and it would be easier to have the limited consciousness of the simple man. Ainjel Emme has suffered from this complex disease and seems to have an unlimited consciousness of her universe; this cycle of songs is replete with mesmeric, emotional songs of love and life spurred on by
that unchained awareness. If her heartache is indeed boring, it's an emotional ennui from which she's derived a lot of creative richness. The instrumentation is sparse but elegant - the drums are crisp, the bass bold and the guitar textures, both acoustic and electric, prosperous. Her dynamic vocals are right up front where they belong. There's many great songs here - it starts with "As Long As It's Sweet," which she sings with a knowing authority, and which sports an elusively seductive hook. It's as enigmatically provocative as a Dylan gem such as "I'll Keep It With Mine," which circles around its subject without penetrating it directly. "In Flames" smolders and then erupts from a slow-burn verse into a haunting refrain powered by electric guitar like the mythic phoenix rising from flames, of which she sings. "This is just the suffering that I go through for you," she sings in "Set Up For A Fall" against a gently galloping groove." "Dodging Fate" is an honest acoustic guitar ballad about destiny that comes and goes in under two minutes. And most astounding is the hypnotic elegy to winter's consequence, "The Frozen Lake," an epic exploration of romantic yearning with a passionate melody that shows off her powerful but delicate voice. "My songs might seem sad," she once said, "but if you really listen, you can hear the guitars laughing." Really listen. You'll be glad you did.
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