Kelley Polar: I Need You to Hold On While the Sky Is Falling (Environ CD)
Kelley Polar has a fantastic history for write-ups like this one. He's the brother of another established electronic artist (Blevin Blechdom), is the Croatian-born son of U.S. diplomats, was a musical prodigy at a very young age, studied music at Juilliard (but was expelled), did the string arrangements that made Metro Area's backcatalogue so lush, and released a handful of records with his fellow string performers as the Kelley Polar Quartet. It's confusing then that his debut in 2005, the über-slick Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens, got so completely overshadowed by the likes of Junior Boys or early Hot Chip, artists flirting with the same musical stew of R&B, house, disco and new wave pop, especially considering that as a self-contained musical force, Polar is superior to his contemporaries, wearing several hats as primary songwriter, producer and vocalist as well as being responsible for all the string arrangements (and playing the viola) on nearly every track.
His second album is more confident in its blending of styles, moods and sounds. There are moments where he adds in a Laurie Anderson-esque vocal tribute, but never is it stronger than on the first track with its curious vocoder repetition of prosaic phrases (repeated nearly a capella, until a beat is introduced, in an odd phrasing which usually requires a rapid-fire repetition 5 times over of each phrase). The baton is passed from this vocal bit to a simply gorgeous combination of lush Detroit techno and disco strings. Elsewhere, "We Live in an Expanding Universe" also gives a nod to Anderson's "O Superman" with its haunting staccato vocal chords, before evolving into a lovely new wave pop song. More R&B-tinged are tracks like "Sea of Sine Waves," characterized by a bulbous bassline, fluttery backing vocal pattern and fat analog synth lines, or the breathy "Chrysanthemum" which has a super hot 70s R&B unison chorus (it makes me think of Ramp, for some reason). There are also the full-on pop workouts of "Entropy Reigns" and "Satellites," the former of which is as close as you'll probably get to the best track the Human League never recorded.
But what's most fresh about this album is not its references to the music of the past, but the music of the present and future. "Zeno of Elea" is an oddball true original, consisting of a narrative vocal and a weird arpeggiated synth line. "A Dream In Three Parts (On Themes By Enesco)" is presumably building upon musical themes by Romanian composer Georges Enesco (although I'm not familiar with his repertoire), with a fantastic, otherworldly quality to the various pieces and parts, generally beatless, sprinkled with synths and layered with string arrangements. And closing tracks "Thurston and Grisha" and "In Paradisum" seal the deal with more unusual arrangements, the latter consisting of a swirling amalgam of pitter-patter snare rushes, noodly portamento synths and swelling vocals. These tracks break the mold of the fusion-pop style that might those Junior Boys or Hot Chip comparisons, and their placement throughout the album helps keep things from feeling too repetitive.
It's a hot album that hopefully will bring Polar the broader praise he deserves, both very much here and now in its blending of styles, but also forward (and backward) looking in its combination of unique arrangements, curious ideas and tip-top production.
mp3s: A Feeling of the All-Thing | Chrysanthemum
more information: Environ | Official site | Myspace
buy it: Boomkat | Emusic | Amazon | iTunes