AMG review round-up, volume XVIII: the rest of 2009

{didn't quite make the list}

Y∆CHT: See Mystery Lights review
See Mystery Lights is YACHT's first album as a duo -- vocalist Claire Evans is now a full-fledged member alongside beatmaker/primary instigator Jona Bechtolt -- and their first for DFA Records. Though initially surprising, their shift from a tiny Portland indie to N.Y.C.'s premier independent dance label was in many ways eminently logical: YACHT's playful electronic beats, party-friendly eclecticism, off-kilter poppiness, and array of male/female, spoken/sung (mostly spoken) vocals already had a lot in common with the DFA sound, and particularly with the label's flagship act, LCD Soundsystem. (Their previous album's "Platinum," for instance, bore a more than passing resemblance to LCD's "Get Innocuous.") Musically speaking, the differences between See Mystery Lights and its predecessor are hardly dramatic: the songs are lengthier and fewer, the beats are tighter and more dance-oriented, but the same fundamental elements and energy are all still in place. And energy is key: if most of the DFA stable draws on a hip, wryly detached downtown aesthetic, YACHT's outlook is typically a good deal sunnier, embracing an ethos of childlike innocence and personal affirmation (with just a slight shading of artily ironic distance). Concurrent with this album (which was named for the paranormal optical phenomenon haunting their adopted home base of Marfa, TX), Bechtolt and Evans made things considerably more complicated (or, arguably, just more distracting) in that regard: declaring YACHT to be just a band, but also a Belief System; inviting anyone to "join" (via the online "YACHT trust"); issuing cryptic manifestos online and in print; displaying a conspicuous obsession with triangles; and propagating a series of aphoristic mantras (including one borrowed from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and, perhaps the most worrisome, "YACHT is not a cult") -- all adding an inscrutable, somewhat sinister undertone to their positivity.

Despite the mass of verbiage and iconography, it's hardly clear what they're getting at with all the quasi-occult trappings, apart from creating some marginally intriguing art, but thankfully understanding it is completely unnecessary for enjoying the music. The only album cuts with an overt lyrical connection to this pseudo-spiritual business are the first two numbers (both built around repeated nursery rhyme-like incantations about the afterlife) and "Don't Fight the Darkness," which turns the Maharishi's mantra into a loopy bit of sparse, Timbaland-ish IDM. Despite some reasonably inventive beat programming, they're probably the least interesting things here, sounding dry and labored in comparison to the freewheeling fun of obvious party jams like the cheeky "I'm in a Love with a Ripper," with its T-Pain-jacking Auto-Tune hook, and the very-DFA "Summer Song," an affectionate if derivative disco-punk homage built on a solid foundation of cowbells, handclaps, and an all-mighty bassline. Though the album as a whole makes for an enjoyably unpredictable hodgepodge of summery, celebratory, and frequently quirky sounds, individual numbers often suffer from a sort of ambivalence of form, as though they couldn't decide whether they wanted to be pop songs or dance tracks -- it's telling that the two most effective moments both feature a clear and engaging structure, albeit very different approaches. The biggest earworm is "Psychic City," a laid-back groover that borrows the curious verse lyrics (and linear song form) of a 1987 song-poem by K Records' Rich Jensen, adding the self-evident refrain "Ay-Ya-Ya-Ya!"

But See Mystery Lights' biggest leap, and most surprising success, is the two-parter "It's Boring/You Can Live Anywhere You Want," which abandons pop linearity altogether in favor of an extended, expansive beat workout, kicking off with unprecedented guitar-driven punk-funk intensity, then delving into a hypnotic, Afro-tinged groove powered by frenetic drumming and swirling, chanted vocals. It's by far the album's longest cut and also the clearest indication of why DFA is an appropriate home for YACHT -- to the extent that it could almost be written off as a mere LCD Soundsystem/Juan Maclean ripoff (which, perhaps, if you want to be a real killjoy, makes it in turn an Arthur Russell/Brian Eno ripoff...) if it weren't so compelling and enjoyable in its own right. YACHT focus most of their (musical) energies on making goofy, offbeat pop in the frivolously fun vein of good-vibes heroes Tom Tom Club, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that -- it's their best quality, and that certainly remains true on See Mystery Lights -- but this track in particular demonstrates that, when they so choose, they can be equally adept at channeling the fearlessly adventuresome spirit of Talking Heads, and there's definitely nothing wrong with that either.

OMO: bio and The White Album review

The London/Berlin-based duo Omo have a good deal in common with their willfully weird Lo Recordings labelmates the Chap, which comes as little surprise considering that one-half of the duo, Berit Immig, also serves as a vocalist and keyboardist in that band (and, in fact, both members of Omo previously played with Chap main man Johannes Von Weizsäcker in the group Karamazov). The two outfits share a deliciously warped sensibility, characterized by a wry, steely-eyed humorousness that seems at once decidedly English and also rather incongruous and alien, as though something were being lost (or deliberately mangled) in translation. Whereas the Chap typically deliver a fairly muscular, mutant electro-rock sound, Omo's musical approach on this debut LP is calmer and gentler but perhaps even quirkier, combining cheap-sounding synths and beatboxes with languidly plucked guitars and an array of electronic burbles, whistles, wordless vocalizing, and other odd noises to craft sparse but amiable compositions recalling the retro-minded stylings of groups like Plone and Stereolab as well as the strangely lucid sonic abstractions of the Books. As curious and endearing as Omo's music might be, however, its primary function is clearly to serve as a backdrop for the duo's vocal and lyrical shenanigans. Typically delivered in spoken or half-sung phrasing (bearing out occasionally cited comparisons to Laurie Anderson) and often subjected to electronic vocal manipulations whose effect is, on the whole, more whimsical than off-putting, The White Album's lyrics focus in on the minutia of various facets of everyday life: the hours of the clock ("2 PM"), a tennis game ("Advantage"), some fish in a tin ("Fish in the Tin"), and, of course, teatime ("Tea Break"), along with occasional forays into biology ("Her Body," a found-text description of a bird laying an egg) and fantasy ("König," sung by a theramin-voiced queen with a crown of "real stars"). There's an occasional whiff of overarching commentary on the culture of consumerist consumption -- in the general preoccupation with material objects and in more specific instances like the music industry vignette "Live Show," the bland ad-copy language of "ROV," and especially standout track "Oversized," which features some folderol about eating tarts (over a perky, chintzy bossa-nova beat) followed by the comically unsettling refrain "Will you be surprised when I'm oversized?" By and large, though, Omo offer arch absurdism of an elemental and purely conceptual stripe, rendering any inklings of interpretation more or less gleefully futile.

Caspa: Everybody's Talking, Nobody's Listening! review

Highly touted dubstep scenemaker (DJ, producer, label head, ostensible great white hope) Caspa opens his debut album, Everybody's Talking, Nobody's Listening!, with, ironically enough, some talking: the legendary U.K. reggae DJ David Rodigan asserting that "it's all about the music" and sketching an implied sonic and cultural lineage leading directly back to "King Tubby's echo chamber in western Kingston." It's an odd choice for a keynote, and a rather dubious connection, because the music that follows lands pretty squarely on the least roots-oriented end of the dubstep continuum. Despite a vague Jamaican flavor imparted by guest MCs on a few cuts (most notably Roni Size compatriot MC Dynamite, always a likable presence, though he's more of a grime/hip-hop hypeman than a true ragga toaster) and the genre's de facto half-time skank undergirding about two-thirds of the set, there's relatively little reggae influence discernible here, and almost none of the organic, reverberant, dubby haze favored by producers like Burial. Instead, Caspa's productions are cold and mechanical, often strident and occasionally somewhat sterile-feeling, but nonetheless brutally effective dance music, albeit dance music of a curiously sluggish strain. There may be hints of heat and humanity in these grooves, and moments of woozy intoxication, but they derive strictly from the interplay of rhythms themselves, while the textures remain resolutely forbidding and industrial. Caspa's sound is presented at its most potent, elemental form in the instrumental cuts: the spare, ominous "Low Blow," with its trademark midrange wobbles and pummeling bass; the strobed, colorless zapping of "Marmite." The bleepy "I Beat My Robot" and "The Terminator" hit just as hard while offering just slightly more musical range, which could almost be taken for playfulness. Elsewhere, the vocal cuts are decent if fairly undistinguished musically (though "The Takeover" does amusingly feature its own screwed-and-chopped remix outro), while a handful of stylistic experiments reaching beyond Caspa's comfort zone (slick R&B on "Lon-Don City," downtempo acid jazz on "Victoria's Secret") are passable in themselves but feel out of place. He leaves listeners with a final pair of curiosities: the jittery, obnoxious Streets-like pop-grime-house oddity "Disco Jaws" and an evidently nostalgic tribal-ambient excursion titled "Back to '93," which is the album's longest and probably most incongruous cut. Taken together with the aggrandizing intro track, it seems there is some attempt being made here at a statement about U.K. urban dance culture/history, and, presumably, Caspa's place within it. The album itself is hardly strong enough of a musical statement to make much of that premise (notwithstanding the foolhardiness of historicizing yourself on your own debut album), but it's certainly got a lot of energy.

Hanne Hukkelberg: bio and Blood From A Stone review

Is Blood from a Stone Hanne Hukkelberg's difficult third album? Actually, on the surface it may be her most direct work so far, slotting more neatly and readily into a recognizable genre type -- call it dark, shoegazey, post-punk-derived art rock -- than either of her previous albums, and making prominent and comparatively conventional use of electric guitars, without abandoning her distinctive found-object approach to orchestration. Hukkelberg's music has always been difficult, requiring repeated and attentive listening for the nuances of its elliptical melodies and intimate sound-worlds to seep through. She's always been an artist who works in shades of gray. But if Little Things was silvery: blithe, wispy, evanescent; Rykestraße 68 more of a wizened, smoky charcoal, mottled and murky; Blood is closer to a gunmetal smear: drab, dense, and frequently oppressive. Drawing explicit inspiration here from the likes of Sonic Youth, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and PJ Harvey, Hukkelberg seems less interested in those artists' visceral urgency than their sonic grittiness. Blood gestures toward post-punk's primal edginess, particularly in its brutalist percussion tactics (freezers and stoves, clogs and rocks, no traditional drum kits), but it fails to approach the traction and immediacy of, for instance, the previous album's gripping, revelatory Pixies cover. Part of the trouble is that her remarkable voice is put to notably less expressive use this time around. More to the point, though: most of the songs just aren't that compelling. Things start out strong, with the lush, gauzy "Midnight Sun Dream," the swaggering title track, and the driving "Bandy Riddles," which boasts the album's most sprightly melody. From there on it's heavy going, as the songs seem to devolve into a dreary, largely undistinguished mass, respectable and even potent on a tonal and textural level, with some undeniable moments of beauty and strangeness, but weirdly laborious to actually listen to. No one should have expected getting Blood from a Stone to be easy, but it's a shame it had to be this much of a chore.

Sally Shapiro: Miracle review

If the most striking feature of Disco Romance, Sally Shapiro's utterly charming debut album, was its uncannily meticulous evocation of early-'80s Italo disco in all its fragile, intimate glory, the most notable thing about this follow-up set may be how fully and faithfully it replicates its predecessor. Save for an occasionally perceptible updating and subtle toughening of their sound, and a marginally poppier writing approach (thanks largely to the increased involvement of Nixon/Cloetta Paris songsmith Roger Gunnarsson), Johan Agebjörn and his still-secretive chanteuse have hardly altered their working template, so album number two feels mostly like a déjà vu whirlwind of glistening synths and icily insistent beats, laden with sweetly cooed romantic disclosures and hushed spoken asides. It's a rather less uncanny feat the second time around, certainly, and My Guilty Pleasure can't help but feel like something of a letdown after the starry-eyed singularity and surprise of Shapiro's initial appearance, but more of the same is, in this case, far from a horrible thing. To some extent, it's hard to say what else could have been expected -- the two discs' worth of largely reverent remixes that followed Disco Romance were surprisingly scant on potential new directions (that said, the one remixer who crops up again here, Tensnake, does provide a loose, poppy highlight in "Moonlight Dance," even if it's less distinctive than his dubby, percussive mix of "I'll Be By Your Side"). Excepting perhaps wholesale retreads like "Looking at the Stars" and "My Fantasy" (dead ringers for the first album standouts "Hold Me So Tight" and "I Know"), the sameness of the sound isn't necessarily such a problem in itself; more disappointing is that nothing here follows up on the charismatic songwriting promise of the stellar inter-album singles "He Keeps Me Alive" and "Jackie Jackie" (which appeared on the North American release of Disco Romance and the European edition of this album) -- even with Gunnarsson aboard, nothing here approaches the personable nature of those songs or of his work for Cloetta Paris (whose overlooked 2008 debut is a far more worthy next step for Shapiro admirers). The closest are probably "Love in July" (featuring an almost imperceptible vocal cameo from Paris), whose electro-tinged warmth does indeed inject a bit of summer into Shapiro's decidedly wintry vibe, and "Save Your Love," a simple but touching blast of quasi-Hi-NRG dance. The lushly arranged album closer, (and first single), "Miracle" is a nicely effective piece of overwrought emotionalism, complete with fake thunderstorm. A little variety goes a long way -- here's hoping the next album will continue to explore further afield. In the meantime, this may be a holding pattern, but it's one worth holding on to. Diminishing results are, after all, still results.

Montt Mardié: Skaizerkite review

By the time of his third album -- fourth if you count the disparate double-set Clocks/Pretender as two; fifth if you include the half-re-recorded compilation Introducing...The Best Of (whose several new tunes are very much in keeping with his work here) -- Montt Mardié, still only 25, had long since left behind the endearing adolescent idiosyncrasy of his debut for a distinctly sophisticated brand of classically inflected indie pop. That's not to suggest that he's abandoned his deep-seated sentimental streak (a sensibility which feels at once youthfully idealistic and somewhat improbably nostalgic and wistful) or his penchant for giddy exuberance. On the contrary, Skaizerkite is packed full of peppy, danceable, and dramatically heartfelt soul-pop, from trumpet-blaring opener "Welcome to Stalingrad" to the Motown-ish groover "Bang, Bang," the tense New Romantic fashionista strut "Click, Click," the string-laden stomper "I Love You Annie," and the majestically melancholy lead single "Dancing Shoes," a perfectly pitched ode to dancing through your tears. Mardié's familiar lyrical concerns, including (most chiefly) lovesickness and (as a glance at the track list suggests) European travel, are all here, and the album is practically dripping with schmaltzy romanticism, inflated both by his impassioned falsetto delivery and by lavish semi-orchestral arrangements that hearken in equal measure to the '40s, the '60s, the '80s, and the more recent likes of Camera Obscura. It's accomplished stuff, to be sure -- fans of Mardié's past work or the chamber pop genre in general are likely to be pleased -- but it can feel fairly overwrought and overwhelming when taken as a whole, so the handful of gentler, more stripped-down numbers (including the tender portrait-ballad "Elisabeth by the Piano" and geek-love farewell "Dungeons and Dragons") come as a welcome change of pace, even if the latter's combination of nerdy references and heart-on-sleeve emotionalism verge on parody. It may not have quite as many obvious stand-out songs as his past work, but Skaizerkite still stands as a consolidation of Mardié's many strengths, and the most self-assured and unified statement thus far from one of Sweden's finest young popsmiths.

Thunderheist: bio and Thunderheist review

An admirable attempt to shake up hipster dance music formulas that doesn't quite come off, Thunderheist's self-titled debut combines the decent if derivative talents of Isis -- a real-deal MC who mostly limits herself here to dumbed-down good-times party rhymes -- and Grahm Zilla, whose synth-laced productions take in Moroder-esque disco, old-school electro, stuttering crunk and B-more club, and brittle tech-funk. It's a promising merger, but the results are frustratingly uneven. While the blank-voiced Isis occasionally makes for an intriguing presence on the mic, as on the minimal, electro-flavored "Slow Roll" and "Cruise Low," too many of her ostensible hooks come off as tired and oddly dispassionate rehashes of the frank sex rap perfected by the likes Peaches and Spank Rock, not to mention Missy and Lil' Kim. That's particularly true of the duo's early singles ("Jerk It," "Bubblegum") and several of the other tracks packed towards the front of the album, where Zilla's beats are too plodding and one-note to provide much spark, either. Things get somewhat more colorful, or at least varied, in the album's latter half, with "The Party After"'s curiously murky booty-groove and "Space Cowboy"'s gleaming disco/R&B, which demonstrates -- along with the surprisingly soulful early standout "Nothing 2 Step 2" -- that Isis is far more engaging as a singer than as an MC. A few notably weak tracks notwithstanding, most of this material would be pretty enjoyable, or at least reasonably effective, in a club context -- taken as an album, though, it's an unfortunately tepid, shruggable listen with a small handful of highlights.

Black Devil Disco Club: In Dub, Eight Oh Eight and The Strange New World of Bernard Fevre reviews

"What could be more devilish than a decently atmospheric but insipidly monotonous and ultimately fairly tepid techno record? How about that same record again...twice! That's not exactly what Bernard Fevre is offering here on this companion release to his 2006 "comeback" album, 28 After, but it's distressingly not far off."

Bernard Fevre may have been largely inactive in the quarter-century between the little-heard initial release of his 1978 Black Devil opus Disco Club and its 2004 re-release (and attendant critical plaudits), but he's certainly been making up for lost time since then. In the ensuing years, he's toured, cut a handful of remixes, issued a follow-up LP of uncertain provenance (28 After), a remixed version of same (In Dub), and another similarly styled album (Eight Oh Eight) of evidently new material, which was presented as the third and final item in the Black Devil oeuvre. Honoring that notion (at least for the time being) while still keeping the ball rolling, Fevre has now turned to his pre-1978 output -- several albums of electronic library music (i.e., generic-use soundtrack cues) -- for source material. Neither a wholly new outing nor a straight reissue, this release is a curious amalgam: it contains about half of the tracks from 1975's The Strange World of Bernard Fevre -- two of which had surfaced more recently on the crate-trawling library music compilations Further Nuggets and Space Oddities -- all of them newly spruced up with richer, fuller production and extended a good minute or more past their original one- to two-minute snippet length. The remaining half of the tracks are previously unreleased, though it's hard to know for sure whether they're wholly new or just salvaged from '70s scraps. It's certainly an unorthodox approach to constructing an album, but it's a sensible one for this material, which benefits from the expanded focus. The results are enjoyably old-fangled but not overbearingly so, making for an engaging, immersive experience and arguably a more rewarding one than the latter-day Black Devil efforts. The sound palette is familiar -- nothing but deliciously musty analog synths -- but the emphasis is on mood-alteration rather than dancefloor incitement, spanning an emotional range from seedy to spacy to spooky and, of course, campy. Strangely delightful.

also reviewed for AMG:
Baby Teeth, Fanfarlo, Fischerspooner, Nite Jewel, Throw Me The Statue, John Vanderslice, Susumu Yokota

also previewed/reviewed for CP:
The Field, Issa, Junior Boys, Lady Sovereign, Micachu, NOMO, Paramore, Sian Alice Group, Telekinesis, Keith Urban

{reissued '09}

The Boy Least Likely To: The Best B-Sides Ever review

The Boy Least Likely To were one of the most delightful indie pop outfits of the 2000s, but hardly one of the most prolific, so it's a great boon to fans of their ramshackle twee to have the loose ends of their output to date compiled here -- especially so since most of it is first-rate stuff, entirely in keeping with the style and quality of their albums. As its title suggests, this disc (which was initially bundled with pre-ordered copies of their sophomore album, The Law of the Playground, and later made available at independent record shops) collects the B-sides of the singles from their debut, The Best Party Ever, with one perhaps wise omission: the highly improbable Armand Van Helden remix of "Monsters" (it's more listenable than you might expect, but it would certainly disrupt the flow here). There's also "Faith," a rendition of the George Michael chestnut that first appeared on a Q magazine freebie disc of '80s covers -- it might sound a bit funny on paper but it works marvelously, a sweet and relatively straight reworking (albeit swapping the original's Bo Diddley groove for a simple plodding two-step), at least until the recorders, glockenspiel, and toy percussion kick in for an instrumental bridge. The other cover here, of the Field Mice's somewhat dour acoustic ballad "Between Hello and Goodbye" (itself a B-side to begin with) is more reverent and less revelatory, though nice enough. The originals, however, are all prime Boy, deploying the full arsenal of banjos, xylos, synthesizers, and assorted kiddie instrumentation; spanning the spectrum from bouncy ("Oddballs") to tender ("Cuddle Me"); and boasting melodies that in some cases rank among their finest work -- particularly the jubilant "Rock Upon a Porch with You" and wistful "When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Boy Again," both of which seek to shortcut the gap between childhood and old age, though working from opposite ends of the equation. Simply put, anybody who has treasured the Boy Least Likely To's superb albums will find there's that much more to love on this brief but satisfying collection.

Pax Nicholas and the Nettey Family: bio and Na Teef Know De Road Of Teef review

A virtually unknown Afro-funk rarity, deservedly rescued from obscurity by the good people of Daptone Records, Na Teef Know de Road of Teef is the work of Fela Kuti sideman Nicholas Addo Nettey, featuring several of his Africa 70 bandmates and recorded at the same Lagos studio (run by Cream's Ginger Baker) where Kuti cut many of his prime '70s sides. It's no great surprise, then, that Kuti's output of this era is the obvious touchstone here, and Fela fans will find this material immediately familiar, right down to the format of the album: four lengthy, intricately rhythmic, jam-heavy grooves, alternating between gritty call-and-response vocals and extended instrumental passages. That said, these recordings feel particularly raw and stripped-down, sacrificing some of Fela's horn-heavy punch (even though there are certainly horns here, along with plenty of percussion) for a slinkier, burbling vibe, dominated throughout by a reedy organ that recalls the chicken-shack jazz-funk of Jimmy Smith and the Meters. Soulfully grooving, if sometimes more hypnotic than danceable, and handsomely presented with the eye-popping original sleeve art intact, Na Teef Know de Road of Teef makes a welcome addition both to the Daptone catalog and to the shelf of any discerning Afro-beat collector.

{release date confusion: '08 France, '09 UK, '10 US}
The Dø: A Mouthful review

The Dø -- the Parisian duo of Dan Levy and Olivia B. Merilahtin, whose moniker (pronounced like "dough") derives from both member's initials, but also refers to the first (and last) note of the solfege scale, as well as the Norwegian and Danish words for "die" -- stake out their unconventional indie folk-hip-pop territory with A Mouthful. It's all over the map, both musically and emotionally, and can be a lot to take in ("A Handful" might have been more appropriate), but they manage to strike a quirky yet affecting through-line that mediates between their frisky playfulness, fiery brashness, and tenderly sentimental sincerity, and helps to integrate the album's stylistic hodge-podge so that its eclecticism feels improbably natural rather than forced or gimmicky (or simply schizophrenic.) To be sure, the album's success rests largely on the duo's high-caliber musicianship -- in particular, multi-instrumentalist Levy's dextrous, sophisticated arrangements (which reflect, among other things, both his jazz influences and the pair's past collaborations on a handful of film soundtracks), and Merilahtin's distinctive, versatile singing voice -- which allows them to tackle an idiosyncratic assortment of genres with uncanny ease and coherence.

For the bulk of its running time -- roughly two-thirds of the tracks, give or take -- A Mouthful doesn't stray terribly far from relatively familiar, primarily guitar-centric folk/pop/rock fare, with a particular focus on breezy balladry (including the autumnal "Song for Lovers" and the sublime, elegantly bluesy "At Last") and a few tougher-edged roots-pop nuggets ("On My Shoulders," "The Bridge Is Broken.") Often, especially on the more aggressive cuts toward the album's end, this material recalls the artier side of '90s alternative and indie rock -- a comparison brought home by Merilahtin's passing vocal resemblance to prettily gritty singers like PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, and Nina Persson (specifically her work with A Camp). Even on these comparatively pedestrian offerings, the Dø offer far more compositional and instrumental nuance than your typical songwriterly outfit. Elsewhere, they hop through genres with gleeful abandon, calling to mind the infectious precocity of early Nellie McKay, the capriciousness of Beck, and perhaps even Björk's limitless ingenuity. Not that anything here feels remotely like a derivative genre exercise. "Stay (Just a Little Bit More)" is a cute bit of retro-pop whimsy polka-dotted with ukulele, whistling, strings, and carnivalesque organ; "Queen Dot Kong" is a shockingly credible but utterly demented stab at hip-hop with a swaggering horn section, all manner of cartoonish musical left turns, and its own expansively grooving instrumental-fusion coda. And the album's hidden gem is "Unissassi Laulelet," an all-too-brief curiosity that blends bewitchingly harmonized a cappella vocals (sung in Finnish) with polyrhythmic, quasi-ethnic "tribal" percussion to truly enchanting effect. Then there's the downright off-the-wall opener, "Playground Hustle," a sort of nursery rhyme-war chant by an army of disgruntled, gender-norm-disrupting youngsters, set to a spasmodically funky found-sound beat, which sounds like the Go! Team skirmishing with Le Tigre in a schoolyard scrap-heap with Matmos (circa The Civil War) providing the arsenal. Or something. Anyway, it doesn't really sound like anything else out there, or for that matter like anything else on this album -- which makes it a pretty appropriate calling card. The Dø's debut may be a mouthful, but it's deliciously sweet, tangy, and zestful, and definitely well worth biting into.

{#7 - songs list} The Sound of Arrows: Danger! and M.A.G.I.C. review

If the Sound of Arrows' debut single "Danger!" described the world as a dark and scary place (not that it necessarily sounded that way), this follow-up presents entirely the opposite outlook -- instead of the exhortations of a neurotic parent, it's an unbridled expression of lightness and childlike wonder: "The W.O.R.L.D. is full of M.A.G.I.C." That utterly exuberant chorus (with definite shades of Justice's "D.A.N.C.E.") is even chanted by a bunch of kids -- conveniently or confusingly, "W" is pronounced in Swedish like "V," which may make them seem like a bunch of kid vampires. Rarely has a song's message been so perfectly suited to its sound; a giddy, gushy confection of synths, strings, twinkles, and beats that launches this Swedish duo right into the forefront of prime 2000s regressionist-pop, alongside the Go! Team and Architecture in Helsinki. A trio of glitchified electronic reworkings -- Let's Get Invisible's jumpy, '80s-happy take (subtitled "Reading Is Fundamental"), a spastic synth pop slice-up by Spain's Cof Cof, and a muted breakbeat infusion from Alaska's Curtis Vodka -- do interesting but inessential things, diluting the song's primal innocence somewhat without entirely obscuring its joyful essence, nor making it necessarily any better or worse for the dancefloor, whereas Japan's Ice Cream Shout manage to re-envision the song entirely (this time with harp, glockenspiel, a plodding tuba, and a battery of marching-band percussion) for a fittingly tender and warmhearted new reading. The mellow, meandering "Smalltown Lullaby," a somewhat Christmas-y quasi-instrumental which comes complete with storybook narration, closes out this entirely delightful EP.

AMG review round-up, volume XVII: the second best of 2009

carrying on down the list...

{#26} Fuck Buttons: Tarot Sport [CP concert preview]

Fuck Buttons have a way with paradox, an uncanny aptitude for smoothing over uncomfortable juxtapositions. Just check that improbably cuddly band-name, for instance (or is that just me?) On last year’s majestically visceral Street Horrrsing, the U.K. duo made borderline-abrasive swaths of droning, monotonous electronic noise feel downright warm and cozy, yet also awesomely epic. Their nifty new Tarot Sport replicates that trick and adds a few new ones too, toning down the demonic shrieks and amping up the tribal/triumphal drumming, for maximal adrenalized pummeling hypnotic techno-bliss.

{#28} Fool's Gold: Fool's Gold [+ bio]

In a similar spirit to artists like Extra Golden and NOMO, the music of L.A.'s Fool's Gold is fundamentally rooted in – not merely inspired by – international (and more specifically, African) sounds and styles, even if they essentially emerged within the context of American indie rock (for one thing, three of the band's members overlap with the more straight-ahead indie outfit Foreign Born.) This self-titled debut finds the group – a twelve-strong cohort led by bassist/vocalist Luke Top and lead guitarist Lewis Pesacov, featuring a pair of saxophonists and a full four members devoted to percussion and chant-like auxiliary vocals – delving energetically into eight spicy, polyrhythmic, highly danceable compositions whose emphasis is firmly on groove and riff, as opposed to song per se. Top's curiously resonant, commanding vocals do provide a focal point (he sings primarily in Hebrew, a significant personal distinction for the Israeli-born vocalist, but one which non-Hebrew-speaking listeners will find merely adds another subtle layer to the general ethnic ambiguity at play here), but they are interspersed throughout to give equal weight to the rest of the ensemble, and especially to Pesacov's deliciously nimble fretwork, which is central to the album's idiomatic credibility (cementing, in particular, the buoyant opener/lead single/instant standout "Surprise Hotel.") To some listeners, the stylistic accuracy and pan-ethnic eclecticism of the group's highly informed cross-cultural homages/borrowings (an Ethiopiques-styled number here, a Tuareg blues-informed one there) may come off as somewhat glib and generic, and indeed the album has a bit of the faceless feel of, say, a Putomayo: Africa compilation. But that in itself is, all things considered, an impressive feat for a motley crew of Angelenos; the fact that, far from dry mimicry, Fool's Gold offers up an abundance of joy and soul makes it both a significant statement – further testament to the limitless potential of global musical cross-pollination – and, much more importantly, a hell of a party record.

{#29} Anna Ternheim: Leaving On A Mayday

For her third album -- which would become her second U.S. full-length, following the compilation release Halfway to Fivepoints -- Swedish songbird Anna Ternheim enlisted the assistance of Björn Yttling, best known as one-third of Peter Bjorn and John but increasingly prominent in his own right via production work for Lykke Li, Shout Out Louds, Primal Scream, and others. It was a savvy move -- for one thing, the collaboration netted Ternheim a Swedish Grammy for Album of the Year -- and the results were a modest but significant step away from the accomplished but slightly faceless and overstuffed jazzy lounge-folk of her earlier work, toward an edgier, more distinctly pop direction. While hardly as gritty as Yttling's work on Lykke Li's Youth Novels, or his own band's 2009 album Living Thing, Leaving on a Mayday shares with those records an inventive sparseness -- achieved more through a spacious openness in the sound than a reduction in the number of instruments, per se -- and in particular a relative paucity of guitars in favor of, among other things, surprisingly prominent percussion. That's especially true of the album's first half, where the pulsing, stripped-down grooves are colored by majestically thick string arrangements (penned by Yttling, who also contributed his multi-instrumental talents throughout.) For all its sonic distinctiveness, though, this is still fundamentally a singer/songwriter album -- the arrangements may sometimes be more initially striking than the songs they are designed to serve, but with further listening, they emerge as well-conceived if unconventional complements to a fine slate of lyrical compositions steeped in the autumnal melancholy favored by so many Scandinavians (Ane Brun, Stina Nordenstam, Britta Persson, Sarah Assbring,etc.), with an especial tinge of romantic desperation (Ternheim sometimes seems just as distraught and unsettled by the prospect of an actual romantic connection as she is over the absence of bygone and unattained lovers.) That said, several of Mayday's finest and most striking moments are at least musically upbeat, as with gloriously harmonized choruses of the sweeping opener "What Have I Done" and especially the thundering, Fleetwood Mac-ish "Make It on My Own" (one of two Yttling co-writes, and a key track added to the album for its U.S. release.) The tail-end of the disc finds Ternheim in a folkier vein, with the simply, sweetly strummed "Summer Rain," the tense, fingerpicked "Off the Road," and the foreboding, folkloric dirge "Black Sunday Afternoon" offering a nice reminder of her stylistic breadth.

{#31} Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens: What Have You Done, My Brother? [AMG review]
{#36} El Perro Del Mar: Love Is Not Pop [CP Interview]

{#38} Hynotic Brass Ensemble: bio and Hynotic Brass Ensemble review

"Hypnotic" may be somewhat misleading: the word suggests something lulling and gently soothing, but the music made by this band of brothers is fiery and dynamic, anything but sleepy. While occasionally reminiscent of more established brass band traditions (Balkan, New Orleans), with a hint of soul and a dash of Afro-beat's frenzied intensity, their music is best described as jazzy instrumental funk: compositionally sophisticated, highly contrapuntal, and infused with thorny harmonics undoubtedly picked up from their father -- avant-jazz notable Kelan Phil Cohran -- but always rhythmically direct and unfailingly tight. Anchored by sturdy, simple drum parts and Tycho Cohran's supple, syncopated sousaphone basslines, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble blow dense chord clusters, indelibly soulful unison melodies, and tuneful interlocking counterlines, with only occasional focused soloing and emphasis on accessibility and groove. The album -- their first widely released full-length, which features re-recordings of many selections from their earlier self-released CD-Rs -- is consistently strong though fairly stylistically homogenous, containing mostly upbeat, party-ready tunes with either straight-ahead funk or Afro-inflected grooves, but there are a couple of curve balls in the lush, languorous (and yes, plausibly hypnotic) "Jupiter" and the especially manic, Balkan-esque Moondog cover "Rabbit Hop" (which reappears at the end with the addition of some spacy, wobbly electronic sounds). The only notable flaw in the flow comes toward the end of "Party Started," with some crowd-hyping chants that come off as moronically fratty -- though the group shouldn't necessarily avoid vocals altogether: by contrast, the street-corner scatting that closes the slinky "Ballicki Bone" is a special highlight. As a whole, it makes for an exceedingly spirited and largely unique listening experience.

{#39} Hot Leg: Red Light Fever [AMG review]
{#41} Hess Is More: Hits [AMG review]
{#43} Jill Sobule: California Years [CP concert preview]
{#44} Kikumoto Allstars: House Music [AMG review]

{#46} Two Fingers: bio and Two Fingers review

Through the late '90s and beyond, drum'n'bass cut-up maestro Amon Tobin was widely hailed as one of electronica's most exciting and innovative artists. His popularity and critical cachet have waned somewhat since the early '00s, as his output slowed and electronic trends drifted elsewhere, but the late-decade collaborative project Two Fingers should shoot him right back to the center of attention for anybody interested in forward-thinking, urban-inflected electronic beats and pieces. Working together with U.K. producer Joe "Doubleclick" Chapman, the now-Montreal-based Tobin has crafted his most thrilling and visceral work in ages, if not his entire career, freely borrowing elements of grime, dubstep, dancehall, and Dirty South hip-hop, among other styles, to fashion a sound that, while often only tangentially connected to his earlier output, ultimately sounds like little else out there. Two Fingers interpolates jittery, junglesque beat programming, a junkyard barrage of unpredictable percussive sounds and textures, and a sly, omnivorous approach to sampling ("Straw Men" opens the album with a woozily distorted riff that sounds like a refraction of the Turtles' "Happy Together," while "Jewels and Gems" coasts atop a slew of blazing sitar licks), all combined in a whirl of dark, edgy intensity -- evoking dubstep's curious ability to sound simultaneously spacious and impenetrably dense -- with relentlessly gritty, kinetic energy. Equally crucial to the album's impact are the solid contributions of several MCs; most prominently the London-based rapper Sway, who graces seven of these twelve tracks. Mostly setting aside the waggish wordplay and somewhat mawkish tendencies of his own recent work, Sway is a revelation here, sounding thirstier than ever and imbuing his typically breakneck delivery with a markedly tougher stance, without entirely excising his wry wit. The sparser, slinkier cuts tend to be the domain of female MCs, with dancehall diva Ce'Cile adding the requisite ragga flava to the simmering "Bad Girl"; Philly's Ms. Jade turns up for some stone-faced tough talk on "Better Get That," and coyly coos over the Neptunes-style minimalism of "Doing My Job." And the pair of instrumental cuts -- the eastern-tinged "Keman Rhythm" and broodingly twitchy, blasted "Moth Rhythm" -- are menacing and compelling, easily among the album's highlights. If there's a relevant contemporary reference point for Two Fingers, it's probably the Bug's London Zoo, another broadly synthesizing opus helmed by a veteran electronic producer whose post-industrial urban soundscapes draw on a similar array of styles and make comparably vital use of guest MCs, but whereas Zoo was often oppressively, crushingly bleak, hardly a party record despite its insistent dancehall riddims, Tobin and Doubleclick (and Sway) inject enough glimmers of levity and spirited playfulness -- rhythmic, sonic, and verbal -- into their often foreboding murkiness that Two Fingers should manage to engage a wide swath of movers and listeners.

{#48} Permanent Vacation records: Selected Label Works Nº 1 review

This lavishly abundant selection -- two and a half hours over two discs -- of prime modern disco and lush Balearic house represents the cream of the first few years of output from the Munich-based Permanent Vacation label. The focus is entirely on the imprint's original offerings rather than its laudable reissue efforts. Of the 22 tracks here, half of them remixes (three are also included in their original form), the vast majority are culled from the label's 2008 12" releases, and most are appearing for the first time on CD. Simply put, this is a treasure trove, not only for DJs and collectors (who should be glad to note that the compilation is unmixed) but for listeners of any stripe whose tastes run to fluid, funky, slightly spacy disco-doused grooves. The whole affair is remarkably consistent in terms of both quality -- singling out favorites is a daunting proposition -- and sound: plenty of languid acoustic strums, free-floating synths, buzzy melodics, and the occasional bit of low-grade prog-lead pyrotechnics, with an assortment of tasty vocal turns, always tethered to cozy midtempo 4/4 cadences ranging roughly from torrid to torpid, strutting to sultry. A star-studded list of contempo-disco remixers (among them Aeroplane, Todd Terje, Holy Ghost!, Superpitcher, and Hercules & Love Affair) work their distinctive brands of magic to typically lovely effect without deviating terribly far from the prevailing vibe, while the original tracks offer plenty of their own delights, from the quirky-jerky Italo-squelch of Bostro Pesopeo's "Communquis" to the slow-building, woozily anthemic filter-disco of Good Guy Mikesh & Filburt's "Someone Told Me" to the wispy acoustic noodling and dubby phasing of Dølle Jolle's "Balearic Incarnation" (made only all the more lavish in Terje's electro-kinetic Extra Doll Mix) to the classic congas'n'piano vocal house of "Tic Toc," an exclusive cut laid down by label heads Tom Bioly and Benjy Frölich with assistance from the ever-winsome Kathy Diamond. You could fault Permanent Vacation for their lack of range, or perhaps for their excessive generosity, but taken on its terms this is one solidly classy offering, right down to the intriguing, thoughtful package design, and nigh-on impeccable.

{#49} Obi Best: Capades review
L.A. singer/songwriter Alex Lilly, Obi Best's frontwoman, also tours and records as a backing vocalist for the Bird and the Bee, whose retro-inflected sophisti-pop makes an almost too handy reference point for her own work. It's an apt one, though, both in terms of Lilly's light-spirited, keyboard-based songwriting and, especially, her jazzy, mellifluent, and playfully nuanced voice, which is uncannily reminiscent of Inara George. But she's got her own distinctive style to offer as well, an infectious, wide-eyed freshness particularly evident in her curious approach to writing melodies. Fluid but quirky, swooping and sauntering with conspicuous pleasure through unexpected intervals and off-kilter rhythms, her melodic lines sometimes take on an otherworldly, vaguely oriental cast, as on "Origami" (fittingly enough) and the bouncy, carnivalesque "Swedish Boy" (perhaps more incongruously -- though the song is about "a made-up country" -- but to superbly catchy effect). The melodies mostly connect up well with Lilly's similarly ruminative, charmingly colloquial lyrics: the merger isn't always completely natural, as the words can come off clunky and half-formed (like on the somewhat perplexing rant "It's Because of People Like You"), but her beguiling voice and prevailing sweetness go a long way toward smoothing things over. Elsewhere, along with some touchingly ambivalent relationship songs, "Days of Decadence" and "Green and White Stripes" deal quite nicely with, respectively, nostalgia and ineffability. Songwriting aside, plenty of Capades' appeal lies in its playfully inventive soundscape. Lest one forget, Obi Best are, at least ostensibly, a band, comprised of L.A. studio vets (whose credits include work with Beck and Jenny Lewis) who adorn Lilly's guitar and piano stylings with all manner of fizzy, dreamlike sounds and lush, offbeat electronic effects, underscoring the warmth and whimsy that make this such a welcome, winsome debut.


{#52} Hervé: Cheap Thrills, Vol. 1 review

Beneath the suitably massive, trashy-looking, superhero-sized letters of the title -- which create the somewhat misleading if perhaps not unintentional impression of a disposable mass-market club comp -- Cheap Thrills, Vol. 1 promises to provide "The Sound of the U.K.'s Leading Dance Label: A Mix of Ghetto Bass, House, Dubstep, Electro, B-More Club and Bassline." The accuracy of the first claim may be up for debate, but there's no question that this compilation is every bit as wide-ranging, heavy-hitting, and fist-poundingly, well, thrilling as advertised. Offering no shortage of sirens, fidgety electro breaks, and gloriously corny vocal interludes, and veering wildly (sometimes within a single track) from the grittiest, rawest throbbing dubstep bass to the glossiest, unabashedly poppy stadium-trance synths with no regard for the niceties of subgenre demarcations, the only constant among these tracks -- apart from their compulsive, beats-forward danceability -- is their utter lack of restraint. It's an approach to dance music that's been sorely underexploited since the big beat heyday of the late '90s, and the lack of subtlety here is marvelously refreshing, particularly since it never comes at the expense of accessibility and tunefulness. Effectively a showcase for the imprint of the same name headed up by DJ/producer Joshua Harvey (aka Hervé, the Count, Action Man, Speaker Junk, etc., etc.), who has his hand as producer, remixer, or otherwise in nearly half of these tracks, Cheap Thrills is culled from the label's first two years (2008-2009) of output, with eight additional exclusive cuts thrown in. Only ten tracks overlap (sometimes in remixed form) between the two discs (the first is unmixed, the second a relentlessly high-energy DJ mix by Hervé -- obviously each has its place and purpose, but the mix is unquestionably the best way to experience this material), which means there are a generous 25 distinct tracks included across the 35 cuts. The quality remains impressively high throughout (though even the considerable variety may not stave off listener fatigue over two-plus hours of both discs), but definite standouts include Fake Blood's bouncy, pouncy "Fix Your Accent," Jack Beats' cannily deployed dubstep wobbles on both "U.F.O." and "Labyrinth," the pounding filter-house of His Majesty André's "Puppets," and the cartoonish "tribal" drums and incessant builds of Hervé and Jack Beats' "Rainstick."

{#56} Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs: Under The Covers, Vol. 2: The 70s [CP live review}

{#59} Etienne Jaumet: Night Music review

Despite having one album of Kraut-horror-disco (as half of the duo Zombie Zombie) and one well-received 12" (Repeat Again After Me) under his belt, Etienne Jaumet came to his debut solo full-length still a relative newcomer and a self-described outsider to the world of electronica. Perhaps that explains why it stands out as such a fresh and distinct piece of work, well removed from any obvious contemporary electronic trends. Historical reference points for the album, sonically and structurally, include early Detroit techno, the "kosmische musik" of Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schulze, and perhaps, on a more fundamental, conceptual level, the minimalism of Steve Reich -- of course, these are seminal and inevitable touchstones for all electronic music, certainly including the entire minimal techno wave of the 2000s and especially the late-decade revival of cosmic (neo-)disco and the like. But Jaumet manages to incorporate these influences in a refreshingly pure, direct way, crafting a sincere homage to oft-elided originators while avoiding the pitfalls of mere stylistic mimicry, in part, through his unusual use of organic instrumental sounds and elements of free jazz. Night Music is a significant title, appropriately evocative yet non-specific: this is unquestionably dark music, redolent in particular of urban and somewhat seedy nocturnal activity, and it would lose much of its power and cogency if exposed to sunlight.

The track names do suggest a more precise programmatic conceit of a single night's journey through sleep and dreams, but this is hardly a restful affair. As hypnotic as it is, "For Falling Asleep" -- the album's 20-minute opener, centerpiece, and statement of purpose -- would be nearly impossible to actually sleep to, and would seem to portend, at best, highly troubled dreams. The track, built on a constant yet constantly shifting arpeggiated analog synth figure, sometimes accompanied by hissy, wobbly beatbox percussion, glides through a gradually evolving soundscape populated by unobtrusively ominous synth pads, eerie wordless female voices, and a haze of noodly saxophones -- only giving way in its final minutes to a curious, beatless liminal space where, of all things, a deftly plucked harp crops up, coexisting somewhat queasily with still-menacing synth swells. It's a small moment of repose after an exhausting but majestic journey of seemingly endless unfolding, but it's a necessary palate-cleanser, because from there we plunge directly into "Mental Vortex," which rides a sturdier, robotic Detroit groove and a taut, entrancing four-note synth riff into progressively squelchier territory. The album grows marginally calmer, if not necessarily gentler, as it proceeds -- the briefer "Entropy" once again features an insistent synth bass ostinato, but it's more spacious, almost funky, while "Through the Strata," a disquieting drone-based piece dominated by the unexpected and not entirely harmonious sound of a hurdy-gurdy, is propelled only by an intermittent kick drum pulse. Finally, "At the Crack of Dawn" is beatless but throbbing, a study in vague but unremitting tension generated primarily by a clutch of dense, sleazy saxes. It's striking stuff -- definitely not easy listening, but well worth the effort, even if it feels like a slightly lopsided affair, with the final four tracks overshadowed by one terrifically effective and truly inventive epic.

{#62} Here We Go Magic [CP concert preview]

Part breakout debut, part third-times-the-charm rebranding for indie-folkster Luke Temple, Here We Go Magic (Western Vinyl) swirls a kinda-'90s lo-fi approach with a whole host of late-'00s hipster-hippie tropes: hazy electronics, ethnic-y polyrhythms, submerged platitudinous chants and sunny Afro-pop guitar lines, along with a generous side helping of blank drone.

{#63} Nosaj Thing: Drift [AMG review]

AMG review round-up, volume XVI: the very best of 2009

skipping the genre-specific entries for a more all-encompassing approach to finally posting the massive backlog of reviews i've been building up. this might require a few installments: all remaining 2009 album reviews (and a handful of other writings), starting with my favorites, in the order they appeared on my best of '09 albums list:

{#1} The Very Best: Warm Heart of Africa

At the very least, this is some of the most joyous, life-affirming music out there. The Very Best's debut album finds Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and London-based production duo Radioclit (Etienne Tron and Johan Karlberg) more than making good on the promise of the internet mixtape that introduced their partnership to the world. That tape, one of 2008's most celebrated (and celebratory) releases, displayed a truly boundary-defying yet immediately cohesive and recognizable sound: a euphoric global mélange of pop, dance, hip-hop, world-folk, sunny indie rock, electronica, cinematic new age lushness, and the African sounds of marabi, highlife, and kwaito, all highlighted by Mwamwaya's deliriously infectious Chichewa crooning. This time out, without the launch pad of familiar source material that sometimes made the mixtape's slew of remixes, interpolations, and covers feel slightly like a cheeky arithmetic mashing-up of reference points, the threesome have crafted something even more distinctive and organic, dissolving together their panoply of influences into a set of songs (not merely "tracks") that feel blissfully free of formulas and forerunners.

To be sure, the Very Best's sound is essentially an extension of the globalism already increasingly prevalent in 21st century indie and dance music; a connection reaffirmed by a pair of delightful guest appearances from two of that trend's most visible exponents. Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, whose "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was marvelously reworked on the mixtape, returns the favor here by duetting with Mwamwaya on the album's irresistibly effervescent title track. The other big guest shot, naturally enough, is from M.I.A., reigning monarch and mascot of globetrotting beat excursions, who can't help but inspire some smiles on the silly, spunky "Rain Dance." But Mwamwaya hardly requires a famous foil to be utterly captivating. His voice, which is often multi-tracked into toothsome harmonies, is equally capable of conveying majesty, urgency, and exuberance; sometimes -- as on the giddily anthemic "Julia" (which borrows a bit of "Paper Planes"' lazily loping swagger) -- all three at once. But if that voice is undeniably essential to the group's sound, Radioclit's contributions shouldn't be understated either: Karlberg and Tron have outdone themselves with a kaleidoscopic array of Afro-leaning grooves to complement Mwamwaya's contagious melodicism, relying remarkably little on their typically gritty, muscular "ghetto-pop" style. While there are some traces of more straightforward club-derived rhythms - the percussive "Nsokoto" and glittery "Mfumu" both gesture toward disco's 4/4 thump, while the string-laced "Kada Manja," in an amped-up variation on the mixtape's "classical" version, flirts with the hard-hitting sound of kuduro - most of the album is eminently danceable without slotting neatly into any specific idea of "dance music."

But as vivacious and energetic as it is, there's something even more fundamentally potent and potentially profound going on here (not to suggest that dancing isn't profound -- indeed, that might be precisely the point). Take "Chalo," an unabashedly uplifting barrage of Enya-esque synth stabs which was reportedly (amazingly) recorded on the same night that the group's three members first met, and whose lyrics they've described as about "using love to stop the world's problems." This is the sort of thing that helps explain why the Very Best can sport such a ticklish moniker with such evident aplomb: somehow, with these guys, it comes off not so much as a boast (albeit an improbably credible one) but as an encapsulation of the boundless optimism and idealism reflected in their songs and in their sound -- a fervent, infectious belief in music's power to bring out the very best in the world and in the human spirit.

{#2} Jonathan Johansson: En Hand I Himelen [+ bio]

It seems strange to recommend a songwriter of Jonathan Johansson's caliber on the strength of a cover version, but non-Swedish-speaking audiences may find the most immediate point of entry into his second album (which, given its stylistic differences from his first, his change of moniker, and increased exposure, feels effectively like a debut) to be "Alla Vill Ha Hela Världen." It's an essentially faithful rendition of a familiar song -- Tears for Fears' 1985 hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," rendered in Swedish as "everybody wants the whole world" -- but it provides a good indication of the album's approach: rich, gleaming layers of keyboards and guitars; distinctive but not overpowering midtempo rhythms that land somewhere between danceable and drivingly triumphant, and effortlessly buoyant melodies, delivered in Johansson's gorgeously understated octave-doubled vocals. That he can pull off a welcome reworking of a brilliant pop classic without changing it all that much (save for the translation and a slightly synthier sheen), and then make it fit by filling the rest of the album with originals that feel just as enduring and elemental, is quite a feat. But En Hand I Himlen is not a showy album; if anything, it's relentlessly smooth, gliding from the insistent, Arcade Fire-ish pulse of the title track to the breezy, almost Caribbean lilt of "Innan vi Faller," which flows seamlessly into the loping sweetness of "Högsta Take, Högsta Våningen," and so on from there. One highlight after another, without a single subpar track -- Johansson's solemn, hymn-like choral pieces ("Du Sa" and "Psalm Noll Noll") are just as alluring as his scintillating, pointillist wide-screen electro-pop ("Aldrig Ensam," "Sent för Oss.") Indeed, any of these songs could be a forgotten 20-year-old smash single -- or a worthy candidate for an English-language revisiting two decades hence. Even the album's timely 1980s-era referentiality, as prominent as it is, slathered in gauzily synthetic textures, is ultimately secondary to the timeless majesty of its melodies. Highly recommended.

{#3} Mayer Hawthorne: A Strange Arrangement

i still haven't written anything about mayer for publication, but i've probably been more excited about him than any other artist in the last twelve months... if i made this list now, this would be {#1} easy. and he's just as great in concert...

{#4} JJ: JJ Nº 2 [+ bio]
Call them the Tender Alliance. The stark, iconically "edgy" cover of JJ's tersely titled N° 2, with its splatter of blood and grayscale cannabis leaf, seems almost comically incongruous when contrasted with the wispy, blissful sweetness of the music contained inside, which offers nary a tough edge. True, the album does feature one blatant drug track, with a hip-hop sample to boot -- the slow-rolling, reverb-drenched "Ecstasy," which lifts the drippy keyboard line and swaggering stutter-step cadence of Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" -- but the effect is more sluggish (or, to go by the lyrics, huggish) than thuggish. Elsewhere, the pervading haze is not so much psychotropic as simply tropic, with steel pans, timbales, and talking drums flitting up through the burbling electronic undercurrents which, along with singer Elin's bewitchingly languorous alto, transform songs like "Things Will Never Be the Same Again" and "My Love" from perfectly lovely gentle indie pop tunes into something quite a bit more special and intriguing. Even at their most stripped-down, as on closer "Me and Dean," which consists of little more than some lazy acoustic strumming, a bit of background chatter, and a repeated refrain half-borrowed from Taylor Dayne's 1987 hit "Tell It to My Heart," JJ can be entirely endearing; their finest moments -- the intricate instrumental "Intermezzo," whose chintzily Baroque, chiming synth motif floats atop a bed of tabla, beatbox bossa nova, and woozy sound fragments, and especially the gloriously lush, groove-infused "From Africa to Malaga," which features some arrestingly lovely self-harmonizing -- are nothing short of intoxicating. The whole affair lasts less than 27 minutes, but it feels satisfyingly complete as an album, with a balmy, carefree ambience and a level of sonic detail that both invite and richly reward repeated listens.

{#5} Adiam Dymott: Adiam Dymott [+ bio]

A far cry from your typical twenty-something Scandinavian songstress -- among her Razzia labelmates, she has as much in common with guitar-heavy (male) rock acts like I Are Droid and Dundertåget/Thunder Express as with the gentler, more girlish likes of Firefox AK, Maia Hirasawa, and Hello Saferide -- Stockholm's Adiam Dymott distinguishes herself on this succinct and immensely likable debut with a fresh and impressively assured take on classic rock/pop songcraft. The opening cut may be named for John Denver (it's about freewheeling down country roads with a certain unspecified song of his playing on the radio), but a better clue to her affinities is her choice to cover Neil Young's "Too Far Gone" (which provides this album's sweetest, sparest moment). Like Young, Tom Petty, and even Bruce Springsteen, her songs convey a certain literate but unpretentious populism, filtered through a raggedly rootsy, vaguely punkish musical sensibility: good old American rock & roll, albeit from the perspective of an African-descended Swede. Add to that a rich and throaty singing voice reminiscent of P!nk and Liz Phair, inflected with pop and soul in equal measure, and you've got the makings of a refreshing and distinctive new talent. The uptempo rockers here are a total blast -- especially the handclappy singalong single "Miss You" and the driving anti-mainstream youth anthem "Pizza" (which features the delicious call-and-response chorus "My generation's fucked/You left a pile of garbage/Way too big to clean up") -- but there are some real gems among the slower, quirkier numbers as well, like the mellow-grooving "Mrs. Dymott," which muses on the difficulties of having a strange name. The song's chorus spells her name out for listeners (and even offers an etymology) -- pay attention; it's one worth remembering.

{#6} Buraka Som Sistema: Black Diamond [AMG review]
{#7} Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career [CP live review]
{#8} La Roux [CP track review]

One Track Mind: "Bulletproof"

La Roux sure do lead a thrilling, treacherous life. Well, so the titles of their singles would have you believe: the well-coiffed dance-pop duo debuted with "Quicksand" and assailed the UK charts with the ferocious "In For The Kill." Even if it's all metaphorical (yeah, they're pretty much just love songs), there's enough real menace and fierceness in their tracks for the violent conceits to hit home. Nowhere is that more true than on "Bulletproof," their finest achievement and the most urgent, insistent, and utterly invincible sliver of synth-pop from a decade of unabashed retro-wonkery. Call it an '80s-retread if you must; you can’t shoot it down. Ben Langmaid's gritty keyboards pierce like tiny neon shards, and Elly Jackson's spitfire vocal delivery (she of the Tilda Swinton-esque androgyny and opinionated, dubiously-reasoned public statements) offer nothing but glisteningly sharp edges. That is, until the song's gleaming chorus – the sort that's simply one line repeated four times, because that's all it needs to be. "This time I'll be bulletproof," Jackson wails, betraying the slightest hint of vulnerability. More likely, we're the ones who need protection.

{#9} Darren Hayman: Pram Town [AMG review]
{#10} The Boy Least Likely To: The Law of the Playground [CP track review]

One Track Mind: "When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade"

Even by the sugary standards of twee-sters The Boy Least Likely To's addictive, adorable sophomore record, The Law of The Playground (+1 records), this cut's Pollyanna-meets-MacGyver premise is saccharine to say the least. But the fizzy clatter of handclaps and vibraslaps, banjos and fiddles, electronic twitters and piano glisses surrounding our pragmatically positivist protagonist (who also uses raindrops to make rainbows), and a chunky, cheery groove that falls somewhere between the vaudeville-hoedown stomp of Fozzie and Kermit's "Movin' Right Along" and a kiddie-disco version of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out," help give it just the right touch of tart-n-tangy freshness.

{#11} Birdie Busch: Pattern of Saturn

Birdie Busch's third album -- her first to be self-released following two records for Bar/None -- is another fine helping of cozy, abundantly warm-spirited folk-pop. Not too much has changed for the West Philadelphia songstress this time around: she's still working with more or less the same affably rootsy band that backed up her up on Penny Arcade (a title that she coincidentally recycles for this album's opening cut), still seeking simplicity (and searching for love) while pondering the complexities of a life lived somewhere in between the tangible and the ineffable. Pattern of Saturn is a modest offering -- a mere nine songs (and two brief instrumentals) lasting a short, sweet 33 minutes -- but it's easily her best collection yet. Every one of these tunes is an absolute charmer, brimming with soul, tunefulness, and a compellingly youthful wisdom. Ranging from the spirited romantic antics of "Roll It" (a sidelong glance at a saucy suitor), the gee-whiz clip-clop of "Tenderoni," and the rollicking album standout "Bordertown" (a love song for immigrant kitchen workers, with a chorus for the ages) to more contemplative cuts like "Passwords" (a rumination on the oddly intimate aspects of Internet security) and the subdued "Lampshade" (a bluesy ballad of resignation that contains the quietly devastating line "I tried not to write this song"), the whole affair is relaxed, heartfelt, and tremendously inviting. This is truly one to cherish.

{#13} Sissy Wish: Beauties Never Die

Among the legions of Norwegian and Scandinavian pop artists, Sissy Wish (real-life alias Siri Wålberg) is not one of those whose Platonic ideal of pop is derived from Orange Juice and the Field Mice, on the one hand, nor from Madonna and Kylie Minogue on the other. If anything, she seems to take her cues more from the Beatles and Phil Spector, which, in a sense, places her in the same lineage as ABBA. It certainly aligns her with the likes of her countrymen Sondre Lerche, Marit Larsen, and Bertine Zetlitz -- all versatile artists and top-notch writers with a sharp pop sense and a distinctly modern sensibility, rooted in a clear affinity for the classic pop of the past -- though she's hardly a classicist, per se, and she may just be the most musically omnivorous of the bunch. Beauties Never Die, Wålberg's third full-length and her first to see U.S. release (a full two years after it was issued in Norway), is both more adventurous and more distinctive than its predecessor, 2005's Tuning In, trading that album's rootsy, overtly '60s-influenced rock stylings for a vibrantly eclectic musical smörgåsbord. Rather than abandoning the guitars, Wålberg and producer Jorgen Traen (who's worked with Lerche, but has also generated his share of mirthful electronic mayhem as Sir Dupermann and as one-half of the whimsical Toy) simply layer them in along with everything else: plenty of synths and electronics, but also strings, trumpets, organs, pianos, steel drums, stacked backing vocals, and an expansive array of percussion including castanets, a tap-dance solo, and a squeaky sound that might be somebody rubbing a balloon. It's an impressive and often exhilarating Wall of Sound approach, mashing together rock crunch, electro sparkle, kitchen-sink pop playfulness, and moments of unexpected beauty (with just a smidgen of punkish grit), but somehow managing never to feel overstuffed. All that instrumental pizzazz wouldn't necessarily amount to much, though, if not for the songs, which are consistently strong and intriguingly crafted: harmonically intricate, lyrically rich, melodically inventive but always memorable, particularly as delivered in Wålberg's powerful, distinctive voice (it's a hard one to place, but comparisons to Chrissie Hynde, Karen O, or Regina Spektor wouldn't be entirely invalid.) The standout is probably the lilting title track, a dreamy, girl group-flavored charmer which offers the indelible insight that "it takes a lifetime to find out someone's happy to see you every day," but other highlights abound, including the fiery electro-rock of "DWTS" (whose hook is the persistent yell "do what they say!"), the tender, curious "Music on the Radio," and the bouncy, goofily Beatles-ish closer "Book." Consistently enjoyable and wonderfully captivating, if not quite outright dazzling, Beauties Never Die is nevertheless one of those albums which leaves the impression that its creator is capable of just about anything.

{#14} Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard: 'Em Are I [AMG review]
{#15} The Bird and the Bee: Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future [live review]

{#16} Tiga: Ciao!
In the wryly cheeky interview video "Ciao! Means Forever," created to correspond with the release of his second artist album, the preposterously pseudo-pompous Tiga Sontag affects a perfectly deadpan disdain to describe his aversion to touching musical instruments, explaining how he's "forced to use his voice" as his only means of musical expression. The impish Montrealer is in fact credited with co-production on each of Ciao!'s tracks (and, in one case, 808 "live programming," whatever that means) which probably gives the lie to that particular bit of eccentric-artiste whimsy, but in any case he's enlisted some highly qualified operators to handle much of the menial knob-twiddling here, mostly longtime collaborators and friends who just happen to include several leading lights of 2000s electro-house: the Belgian Dewaele brothers (better known as Soulwax and/or 2 Many DJs), Finnish producer Jori Hulkkonen (aka Zyntherius), Sweden's Jesper Dahlbäck, fellow Canadian Jason "Gonzales" Beck, and James Murphy of DFA and LCD Soundsystem renown. Tiga acknowledges their contributions in the liners with his allegedly well-known "false humility," admitting that without them he'd be "just another extremely funny guy who is amazing at football" — but in all seriousness their generous and readily discernible input helps to make Ciao! one of the most assured and enjoyable electronic pop/dance albums, front to back, in recent memory. Of course, "seriousness" is hardly the point here: Tiga's lyrical and vocal approach (which is indeed quite expressive, a definite step up from his sometimes undercooked past efforts) makes sure of that, with a slew of tongue-in-cheek tracks playing on his self-obsessed, hyper-glamorous persona — "What You Need," "Sex O'Clock," "Overtime," "Luxury" ("this is my reality but for you it's just a dream") and the quasi-novelty self-duet "Shoes," which plays like the missing link between the Kelly (Liam Kyle Sullivan) YouTube sensation of the same title and the Black Leotard Front's eccentric-erotic "Casual Friday" — all with club-ready, bassline-driven funky electro grooves and squelchy acid-laced synths to match. The covers that dominated his earlier output are absent here, happily enough, though there are a few notable musical "borrowings," particularly on the album's more subdued and genuinely sensitive latter half: slow jam "Gentle Giant" (co-written with Murphy, and sung with Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears) cribs its hook (wittingly or not) from the Beta Band's "Dry the Rain," while the touching, lilting "Turn the Night On" compounds its '80s homage with a groove lifted directly from Joe Jackson's "Stepping Out," and a melody (and lyrical sentiment) that recalls Bowie's "Modern Love." But calling out Tiga's influences and sources (something that his covers have obviously done throughout his career) should in no way be seen to diminish what he, and his estimable crew of machine manipulators, have accomplished here: Ciao! is at once a tremendously enjoyable piece of dancefloor fluff and an impressively unified statement from a master synthesist of electronic pop pleasures.

{#18} Memory Tapes: Seek Magic
Former Hail Social frontman Davye Hawk traffics in a voguish synthesis of dappled electronic beats, gauzy tropical textures, and amiable indie pop melodicism (with a hint of burnished post-punk), a variegated style that he unveiled across a series of EPs and Internet tracks released under several guises in 2008 and 2009. Seek Magic, his first full-length effort as a solo concern, works as an excellent summation of that particularly elusive, endlessly summery late-decade Zeitgeist, splitting the difference between the gossamer dream pop he makes as Memory Cassette and the more up-front, dancy electro of his Weird Tapes guise (hence, presumably, the conflated moniker). By any name, Hawk emerges here as a chameleonic sound sculptor of considerable range and finesse, able to render guitar-laced pop nuggets, ambient instrumental excursions, and straight-up dance jams all with a consistent, shimmering hazy warmth, and with an engaging looseness that belies his equally conspicuous, nuanced craftsmanship. It's as though he holds at his disposal all the tools of electronica and indie rock, deploying them liberally, but judiciously, with his focus attuned not so much to style or form as to the particular qualities of the sounds themselves. Broadly speaking, the more indie rock-derived elements (which is to say, the guitars) can be found toward the front and back ends of the album -- the languorous, heavily reverbed figure that opens "Swimming Field"; the needly lines that underpin "Green Knight"; the woozy strumming that forms the core of the synth-kissed "Plain Material"; and the gnarled fuzz that eventually subsumes the blissy finale, "Run Out" -- while the midsection contains more purely electronic material: the gorgeous, rippling, faux-Asian mod-exotica of "Pink Stones" and the dancefloor-ready electro-pop of "Stop Talking" and "Graphics" (although the former does admittedly climax with an immense, intoxicating, and very guitar-heavy coda). As it plays, though, the album forms a remarkably fluid whole, stylistically as well as sonically, and what jumps out is not the songs themselves so much as the diverse array of sounds and countless individual moments that stand testament to Hawk's pervasive attention to detail. In many ways, Seek Magic calls to mind Cut Copy's spectacular In Ghost Colours, another gloriously sound-stuffed album that offered a similarly organic-feeling blend of dance, pop, rock, and haze, but while that Australian outfit's work boasts somewhat stronger songwriting and more immediately overt dance appeal, this album may well trump it in terms of atmosphere. One potential sticking point for some listeners is Hawk's voice -- not that it's bad or even particularly unpleasant (and in any case it's rarely the most prominent feature in any given track), but it is somewhat rough and reedy, and not all that well suited to this type of lushly melodious material.

{#19} Kitty Diasy and Lewis: Kitty Daisy and Lewis [CP live review]

{#20} Mungolian Jet Set: We Gave It All Away...Now We Are Taking It Back [+ bio]

What makes the Mungolian Jet Set's decadently overstuffed productions so sublimely engrossing -- whether encountered individually, as they initially appeared, in piecemeal fashion, on 12"s and compilations over the past several years, or taken as a fluid whole on this gloriously epic trawl through their remix work to date -- is not simply their bent for inspired, unmitigated lunacy, but the surprisingly artful way they manage to fold their far-reaching, campy, perversely unexpected, and downright goofy musical ideas into cogent and highly nuanced (albeit undeniably maximalist) compositional structures. Restraint might seem like a foreign concept to these guys -- you can get a decent inkling of their comedic sensibilities by scanning the track list for grandiose remix titles and nutty monikers ("Pizzy Yelliott," the "16th Rebels of Mung") -- but at least they know how to take their time. With a luxurious two hours to fill and track lengths hovering around and sometimes well beyond eight minutes, they've got plenty of it. So it's a good thing they pace themselves, always making sure to establish a sturdy groove (generally midtempo, disco-derived 4/4, with generous percussion layering) before heading off on their interstellar flights of fancy, and sometimes venturing through silky, synth-flecked space for minutes before introducing any overt oddness, frequently in the form of (nearly inevitable, but never predictable) vocals, which range from cartoonish to ethereal. There's even a stretch on the first disc which could plausibly be described as subdued, at least in relative terms, what with the dubby downtempo of "Big Smack and Flies," the darkly stirring ethno-lounge of "It Ain't Necessarily Evil," and a (somewhat failed, but still glorious) stab at minimal techno (infused with snatches of contemporary classical) on "Madre (Epics Part 2)." Of course, that's only after the tone-setting ritual incantation of mumbo-jumbo, the slow-building bewilderment of "Creepy" (the lone new, non-remix inclusion here, featuring both soothingly lush female harmonies and spooky, quivering, PiL-ish shrieking), and the utterly demented Bob Marley cover "Could You Be Loved" (notably this collection's briefest and looniest proper track, shoe-horning electro-funk, patois-pastiche hip-hop, acid house, and more into less than five minutes) -- and before the dizzying cosmic heights of their back-to-back Lindstrøm tag teams.

Disc two may open with the blissfully beachy "Ocean 0304," but it wanders soon enough into stranger, dancier territory, highlighted by the delightfully absurd "Milano Model," which melds orchestral bombast, accordion gypsy stomp, "Drop It Like It's Hot"-style vocal percussion, and a deliciously wigged-out disco-funk climax. So yes, there's zaniness aplenty to be found here, but there's uncommon beauty as well, perhaps no more so than on the two closing cuts: the relatively straightforward Shortwave Set rework "Glitches 'n Bugs," which in this context feels refreshingly unambitious, marinated in sub-tropical exotica but with the original's pleasantly pedestrian pop choruses left largely untouched, and "Moon Song," a glittery take on the like-minded space-prog outfit They Came from the Stars I Saw Them which serves as one final epic, starry-eyed but resolutely earthbound. These more song-centered offerings, while still a decent distance from conventional, come across as loose, relaxed, and (impossibly) almost normal after the unbridled sonic extravagance that's come before, making for a fitting homecoming and come-down after an exhilarating, exhaustive, and expertly paced extraterrestrial journey. "Mungolia", wherever it may be (good money says it's somewhere in the vicinity of the KLF's Muu-Muu), is a fantastically fascinating spot, a can't-miss destination for all electro/eclecto-phile thrill seekers out there -- and this sumptuous set has got everything you'll need to make the trip.

{#23} A Camp: Colonia [CP concert preview]

Nina Persson was at the forefront of the Swedish Invasion back in 1996 with the Cardigans' world-conquering (and still irresistible) "Lovefool," a crystalline pure-pop smash powered by her personable voice and slyly cynical outlook. These days she's got a different sort of conquest on her mind: Colonia, the intriguing new album from her intermittent side project A Camp, is inspired by themes of colonialism and empire, blending savage and majestic imagery and kicking off with a surreally terrifying joint coronation/decapitation. Initially a nominal solo effort, A Camp has solidified into a supergroup of sorts, with Nathan Larson of art-punkers Shudder to Think (also Persson's husband) and Niclas Frisk of Swede-rock stalwarts Atomic Swing. The sound is rootsy, warm and mellow, verging on lush, nodding to classic pop and Americana of decades gone by — but don't get too comfortable. Persson may have shed much of her blond ambition, but she hasn't lost any of that candy-coated cynicism, as Colonia's biggest hook will attest: "Don't you know love can kill anyone?"

{#24} Amadou & Mariam: Welcome to Mali [CP concert preview]

{#25} Little Boots: Hands
A good year on from catching ears and sparking potentially damaging levels of next-big-thing hype with her first single, "Stuck on Repeat" -- a sleek, buzzy, self-fulfilling prophecy of "metaphor pop" with obvious debts to Kylie Minogue and Giorgio Moroder, and a writing/production assist from Hot Chip's Joe Goddard -- Little Boots (aka U.K. popstress Victoria Hesketh) finally showed her Hands. When it arrived, her full-length debut amply justified the hype even while slightly disappointing some of her faithful. It's true that only a handful of Hands' cuts can stack up against the stunning "Stuck" in terms of sonic distinctiveness and sheer hooky inevitability, and realistically, despite some clear mainstream potential, it's unlikely to achieve the sort of massive crossover success that some may have envisioned -- certainly not in America, where the album's street date was pushed back considerably beyond its June 2009 U.K. release. Frankly, Little Boots isn't doing anything especially musically innovative -- as she well knows -- and Hands fails to add any buzz-stoking specifics or publicity hooks to her persona beyond the already established basics: her savvy pop-positive hipster cred and playfully retro videogenic appeal, neither of which give her a leg up on the more quirkily personable likes of Robyn, Lily Allen, or Lady Gaga. But that's perfectly fine, because what Hesketh and her highly pedigreed collaborators have accomplished here is nevertheless a surprisingly rare, deceptively difficult achievement: a practically flawless and entirely enjoyable album of pure electronic pop: "pure" in the sense that, apart from the tacked-on (and unlisted) solo piano title track, there are no sounds on this record other than synthesizers (including synthesized drums) and vocals. Also in that, while the synths are often distorted, filtered, and otherwise electronically muddled, Hesketh's voice is to a large extent tonally pure, and generally devoid of specific inflections, coming across not as blank or chilly so much as just slightly anonymous (in contrast to the undeniably distinctive pipes of her oft-compared compatriot, La Roux's Elly Jackson.)

Although the album, in typical 21st century pop fashion, features a plethora of producers -- including Goddard, chart champion (and Gaga accomplice) RedOne, the increasingly omnipresent Greg Kurstin (Allen, Minogue), and Bertine Zetlitz collaborator Fred Ball -- and a corresponding variety of musical moods -- the brash and buzzy strut of "New in Town," the decidedly Hot Chip-y clank'n'chug of "Meddle," the darkly glossy trip-pop of "Hearts Collide" -- they seem to have condensed on a consistent, elegantly simple synth pop vibe that sets up a sonically unified, satisfyingly streamlined listen. The directness and consistency of the album's production, vocals, and stylistic approach leave a great deal of the focus on the songs themselves, which is good, because songs are arguably Hands greatest asset: a solid batch with several standouts (mostly the singles, including the stomping, club-ready "Remedy" and the absolutely massive-sounding "New in Town," along with the indomitable "Stuck on Repeat") but no space-filling duds or truly weak links. The songs, too, have a distinct conceptual purity, marrying effortless melodic mastery to a kind of lyrical facelessness, often eschewing any kind of personal specificity for general-purpose love/relationship commentary delivered in extended metaphorical conceits about driving ("No Brakes"), broadcasting ("Tune into My Heart"), medicine ("Remedy" -- which is technically, and fittingly, about dancing, not love), and math (not only the bouncy "Mathematics," a treasure trove of senseless arithmetic and algebra jokes ("your x is equal to my y"), but also "Symmetry," a duet with Human League's Phil Oakley that takes on geometry and the general concept of opposition). As restrained and mild-mannered as she may be, Hesketh at her best manages to make even these obvious generic abstractions feel truly affecting: a neat feat she pulled off on "Stuck on Repeat," finding the spark of aching humanity inside the manifestly mechanical (both lyrically and musically), and one she repeats here on the sweetly soaring "No Brakes," a gorgeous, paradoxically calm testament to the delirious uncontrollability of love. Such is the power of great pop, a power that rests firmly within Little Boots' very capable Hands.