No one recalls the year, but we all remember where we were when the Four Heads first appeared. We remember what we wore, what we had for lunch, but above all, we remember the sound. Without warning, a cow portal materialized and four disembodied heads floated out, their voices married in tight harmony despite the divergent eras of music they each appeared to represent. Their origins are still unclear. Their purpose, more so. But the sound… the sound speaks for itself. It’s no secret that the Four Heads’ recording studio is situated in an uncharted corner of Chinatown, and until now no one has ever been invited to enter. The smells of bang snaps and Egg Foo Yung mingle in the air as I step over mysterious puddles and make my way to the intercom. I am buzzed in, and must navigate through a puzzle of pitch black corridors, trap doors and blacklight hallucinations. All at once they are there, floating in front of their mixing desk, listening back to their latest song. Somehow, I locate a sofa in the impossibly dim control room and ask them a simple, yet direct question: Why? “We just sing about what’s going on around us,” says punk warbler, Iggy. “It could be anything. Just this morning, I went to the hardware store to have my hair sharpened, and at the exact moment I passed through the doorway, it turned into a Starbucks. That’s a song, man.” He leans farther back into the inky black of the control room, his point made. The straw hat atop Leonard’s head tilts almost imperceptibly, and his Midatlantic twang crackles like antiquated vocal fry. “It’s happening everywhere, you know. Change. One day it’s this, the next day it’s that. It’s enough to give one pause, if one hadn’t pause to begin with. And what is music if not pauses rudely interrupted by musical notes?” “There are many things we don’t understand, yes?,” explains Depression-era French crooner Preston. “What we don’t understand, of course, we must fear. We must be suspicious. The fear, the suspicion, they drive the compositions. So if we are to continue to write the songs, we must never understand. Fear, always fear.” Before I left them to their work, I had to know what they hoped to accomplish with all of this. Their melodies are infuriatingly catchy. Just last week, Pfizbang Pharma, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company announced that they are currently developing a drug to offer relief to those who are unable to stop humming their songs. The usual side effects are to be expected, and yet here are the Four Heads recording another unforgettable ditty. What, I ask, do The Four Heads hope to gain? Bass singer, Dick, thoughtfully cocks his moustache and answers earnestly. “I like fortune cookies.”