Irresistible Bliss

Irresistible Bliss was Soul Coughing's second album, released in 1996 (see 1996 in music). The band initially planned for Tchad Blake, producer of their first album, Ruby Vroom, to produce the album, but the death of a family member in a car accident caused Blake to take a hiatus. Over the objections of his bandmates and his record label, Slash Records/Warner Bros., frontman Mike Doughty (then billed as "M. Doughty") hired producer David Kahne (Fishbone, The Bangles, Sublime, Tony Bennett, Sugar Ray, The Strokes); he was intent on following up the wild sonics of Ruby Vroom with a tightly-wound, trembly, New Wave inspired record.

The tracking, at Manhattan's Power Station recording studio, was complete in eleven days, and Doughty was jubilant at the results. Doughty tapped Steve Fisk to produce the tune "Unmarked Helicopters" for the X Files soundtrack Songs in the Key of X.

All of Irresistible Bliss' songs were produced by Kahne, except tracks 2 and 6 (by Fisk) and track 12 by the band themselves. The mixing process split the tracks between three mixers: Kahne, Chris Shaw, and Ruby producer Tchad Blake, who intervened when bass player Sebastian Steinberg briefly quit the band.

Irresistible Bliss yielded a hit single for Soul Coughing, "Super Bon Bon." "Soft Serve" and "Soundtrack to Mary" also received some selective radio airplay.