Gather round, children, and let me tell you all about The Bird And The Bee. A 30-something, flirtysomething Californian duo, the bird is the angelically voiced Inara George (daughter of late Little Feat frontman Lowell George) and the bee is multitalented instrumentalist Greg Kurstin (who has played with Flaming Lips, Beck and Lily Allen amongst others). Together this laidback army of two have created an album that’s deservedly destined to become the feelgood soundtrack to the summer of 2007.
From the addictive bass-driven handclappy opener ‘Again & Again’, this is an instantly likable record. Their MySpace site likens it to the soundtrack of a futuristic 1960s American film set in Brazil, and that’s probably as good a description as any.
It’s deceptively simple sounding pop music but, putting their own unique spins on traditional styles from bossa nova to surf, these 10 tracks are far from conventional. Their songs all sound oddly familiar, like tunes you’ve heard many times before, but just never quite so good.
For obvious reasons, the effervescently electronic ‘Fucking Boyfriend’ won’t get very much daytime radio play, but it’s going to become a dancefloor classic. With its mournful trombone and majestic brass arrangement, ‘I’m A Broken Heart’ sounds like 1960s Gallic pop, updated and improved. ‘My Fair Lady’ sounds like a timeless cut from a musical that needs to be written.
There isn’t a dud here. As the emotionally fraught and dreamlike closer ‘Spark’ fades out, your first instinct is to go right back to the beginning. At which point, you realise why they’ve called the first track ‘Again & Again’.
Fast, slow, up, down, happy, sad, plugged in, mellowed out, this is a brilliantly buoyant and wonderfully charming record that’ll suit almost every mood. So now you know. The Bird And The Bee – not quite better than sex, but goes extremely well with...