New Music: Lullatone, o.lamm, Bunny Rabbit

Lullatone - Pajama Party Pop (Audio Dregs 2006)

Lullatone - Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous / Audio Dregs

This isn't so much of a review as it is an origamied note of thank you to Sean James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida, the married duo that comprises Lullatone. This is their fourth album of innocent minimalism filled with tiny instruments and twinkling sine waves, and one could even make the argument for this record to end all religious and racial strife on the planet. Hyperbole? Maybe. But I can certainly speak to the changes in my life thanks to Lullatone's patented pajama pop.

Operating out of the city of Nagoya in Japan, Seymour and Tomida have stitched together music for daily life. "Good Morning Melody" begins the treatment for erasing stress and anxiety. Waking is a tricky matter but just follow Tomida's whispered instructions over a pallete of childhood toy instruments and warm electronics. No need for blithering red-faced radio jocks or acrid alarm clock beeping, just ease on into things. "Bedroom Bossa Nova" means a warm cup of tea and your kitten asleep purring in your lap. "Magical..." is just that, five sparkling minutes of Sean's lovely tones and Yoshimi making friends with the robots, planting dandilions behind their ears. All this is only warming us up for "Pajama Party Pop", a song thats not once failed to give me the warm fuzzies with its xylophone, whistling(!) and steady casio beat.

Pajama Pop Pour Vous won't be for everyone, and those people will continue down their long and anger-filled path. As for me, I'm smitten with Lullatone's cute manifesto. In fact, I've sent back my Buddha Machine with a sincere apology letter. Cuter than a kitten covered in birthday cake, this album is the soundtrack for coasting blissfully through your day.



o.lamm - Genius Boy (Audio Dregs 2006)

o.lamm - Monolith / Audio Dregs

O.lamm is a Frenchman named Olivier and his work expounds on my idealistic and perhaps particularly narrow view of French music. I'm thinking of disco balls, underwater filter sweeps, and a tendency towards unfettered fun. Not to say this is Daft Punk or even the Ed Banger camp, not even close, but o.lamm upholds the strong pop sensibility and smart hooks inherent in all great French electro wizardry.

Monolith isn't so much about robots getting off the bus. Its more like Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson dueling with Mega Man, all 8-bit pixelation and unadulterated fun. This is synth pop for the Nintendo generation. "Genius Boy" is a cavalcade of adventurous glitch, like a cartoon theme song for an all-star Nintendo character jam, before settling into sweet pop bliss complete with cute Japanese girl vocals. The excitement is palpable as you get deep into the string-groove of "The Macguffin", a track that finds perfect use for the high melodrama of female J-Pop, the type that soars on the wings of Ayumi Hamasaki and beyond.

"Open Malice" seems to be the "single" here. And by that I only mean that it has, y'know, the most wide-ranging appeal. Its a true dancefloor gem brimming with dirty King Koopa synth and detached electroclash vocals. Like if Annie hung out all the time with Miss Kitten about four years ago. Uh, that is if we assume such a splicing would achieve the best possible results. "Aerialist" is yet another of the record's highpoints. It makes me want to ride lazerbeams on a futuristic jetski!! And maybe the song is a bit of futurism in anticipating such an experience.

Monolith stands as a beacon of evolution, a hope for a better future, and we are all just apes hopping around waiting to be touched by the light.



Bunny Rabbit - Saddle Up (Voodoo-Eros 2007)

Bunny Rabbit - Saddle Up EP / Voodoo-Eros

Brooklyn's Bunny Rabbit is the latest entry into the current VIP room electro diva sweepstakes. You may also know her as one half of the hazy afternoon duo, Cocorosie, but I guess one can only pine so much and after dusk she becomes an altogether different creature that rocks to perfection vintage sneaks and all-over print hoodies. "Saddle Up" is all about sharp sexual ennui, the kind that never actually happens in real life because its far too clever, especially in the heat of passion. Beats here are provided by Black Cracker, who is definitely informed by grime and the Baltimore club sound. "Lucky Bunny Foot" is a tense one. Bunny Rabbit sounds like you just fucked up by stepping on her foot in the club and you made her drop a $15 drink. Black Cracker isn't helping matters with the Fatman Scoop call and response of "Come on, Bunny, wyle out!!". This is seriously all about attitude. Keep an eye out for the full length, "Lovers and Crypts", out on Feb 20, and if we're lucky some kinda coinciding beef with Uffie.