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| This second album from Australia's Laura McFarlane (Cold Cold Hearts, early
Sleater-Kinney, etc) builds high upon the foundations of her previous work.
McFarlane has an excellent voice, full of expression and warmth, and she sings with a freedom that belies the intimacy of her work. Further enhancing the indie-pop jangle
equation is
McFarlane's incorporation of xylophone, vibraphone and glockenspiel; the
percussive
bell tones of these instruments add an additional dimension to rhythm and melody on the utterly hypnotic "Hawaii",
the elegantly
funereal "Dorsal" and others. The music-box-cum-gamelan quality that develops is quite obviously an intrinsic part of the composition (as opposed to a grafted-on novelty), essential to the songs' structure. But
767 isn't some sort
of experimental-pop oddity -- McFarlane can also rock with the best of
them, as she demonstrates
on the Sonic-Youth-name-checking and generally erudite "Population
100,000". There's even
some DaDaDa-ist fun, courtesy of the Casiotone drumbeats on the
(presumably) Volkswagen
commercial inspired "Woekender". You'll love it. Get down to your local
record shop right this
second and say "Make mine Ninety-Nine!" (but don't expect them to get the
reference outside of
the UK). |
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