LISTEN TO IT #74: I’LL BUY YOU OUT

[defrog]

Sometimes I find the damnedest things via record store listening stations.

Like the new album from Taiwanese singer/songwriter Joanna Wang.

I’d never heard of her, and as her new album was on the same listening station as a couple of bossanova chillout-lounge comps, I hadn’t planned on checking it out. But then I got bored, and took a closer look, and I saw the title of the album: Galaxy Crisis: The Strangest Midnight Broadcast.

So I put on the headphones.

And was charmed.

Ostensibly it’s a concept album with videogames as the central theme, with some tracks serving as soundtracks for videogames that don’t exist. (There’s even a couple of theme songs to non-existent TV shows that, if they did exist, would probably have been produced by Gerry Anderson in the 70s). And Wang – who writes and sings in English – has a very playful approach to her lyrics.

There’s a lot of reference points here, from Regina Spector, They Might Be Giants and Sparks to The Bird and The Bee, Pizzicato 5 and Barry Gray – not to mention old 8-bit videogame music. If any of the above appeals to you, this is worth checking out.

Listen.

Jingle jangle in my pocket,

This is dF