Top Experimental Pop Artists on Rhapsody Online

Radiohead

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:42:40 -0800

One of the 1990s' greatest success stories, Radiohead came to prominence largely on the success of their distorted, ingratiating single "Creep." Drolly repeating "I'm a creep / I'm a loser" in the pounding wake of arena rock guitars wasn't going to win them any artistic grants, but those lyrics and bouts with piercing feedback would not be soon forgotten. It wasn't until The Bends (1995) that Radiohead transcended the formula, crafting the patient, heart-wrenching "Fake Plastic Trees" and the magnetic, sunshine-driven "Black Star." Thom Yorke's signature falsetto began to operate in a more deeply emotional capacity at this point. Finally producing to the caliber of their songwriting, Radiohead's OK Computer demonstrated a staggering attention to detail, probably ranking as one of the greatest commercial artistic successes of the '90s. Rarely does a record offer masterpieces in varying moods. From the thunderously suspenseful "Airbag" to the moody chime of the blustery "Let Down," Radiohead emerged victorious. The alt-rock superstardom and critical gushing that followed pushed them into their darkest and most creative space yet, and they delivered the electronic-tinged Kid A in 2000 and Amnesiac in 2001. Many critics and fans claimed to not "get" the group's twisted, skittering melodies and complicated, chorus-free rock songs but to the devout the band's cerebral art rock was like manna from the heavens. 2003's Hail to the Thief offered up a mixture of guitar-driven tracks amid a more restless desire to experiment. In 2007, Radiohead shook up the music industry with In Rainbows, an album released via their website in which fans could name their own price. - Kelly Bauman

Band Of Horses

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 10:53:11 -0800

Band of Horses formed after the demise of Seattle favorites Carrisa's Wierd, an orchestral indie band with melancholy folk roots. Together for 10 years, they had a devoted following, but never managed to extend that local adoration beyond the edges of the Pacific Northwest. After the bust up, drummer Ben Bridwell (who had never written a song, ever) started writing and playing around town as simply Horses, eventually convincing former Carissa songwriter and frontman Mat Brooke to join him when he opened for an Iron & Wine gig. That event solidified the bearded duo, as the core members of Band of Horses, along with tipping them off (via I&W's Sam Beam) to their eventual new home at Sub Pop Records. With former drummer Bridwell now stepping forward to take the lead, with Brooke on bass, Band of Horses manage to retreat from any previous band memories by ditching their former dark orchestrations to expose an aching waft of twanging guitars that drift effortlessly into dream pop. While compared to groups like My Morning Jacket (who also choose not to shave, create a similar musical mood and wear their Neil Young influences proudly), Band of Horses lean much heavier on the positive, with an inspirational reverb that elevates even their more somber subjects. Their full-length Sub Pop debut,Everything All The Time, was released in 2006, and that's more than enough reason to start a stampede. - Michele K-Tel

Arcade Fire

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:09:56 -0800

At once elegant and driven, the Arcade Fire's music shatters categories like "emo" and even "indie rock." The Montreal-based band earned lofty praise quickly, forming in mid-2003 and winning a large number of fans within a year and a half. Many of these adorers arrived along with the group's debut full-length release, Funeral, near the end of 2004. Voted Album of the Year by influential radio station KEXP, the record soon sold well over 100,000 copies (on the small North Carolina label Merge) and received the endorsements of David Bowie and David Byrne, the latter of whom was seen performing "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" with them onstage in 2005. If that didn't confer great power on this eccentric Canadian band's brutal and beautiful distorted noise collages, nabbing the cover of the Canadian edition of Time certainly signaled they'd arrived. The Arcade Fire formed around Win Butler and wife Regine Chassagne, soon growing to five official members and swelling on tour to nine. The combination of moodiness and joy in their semi-orchestral pop-rock coincided with a year in which several loved ones passed away (including Alvino Rey, veteran swing musician and grandfather of singer Butler and his brother, guitarist William) -- thus the title of Funeral and the music's reflection of ongoing life in the face of sadness. The group continued to tour and record throughout 2005, dazzling Europe and appearing at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. After a scheduled trek through the States in the fall of that year, they returned to Quebec and a newly built studio in a former church, where they plotted their next musical instillation while fans bided time with a reissue of the rare early self-titled EP the Arcade Fire had released not all that long ago. - Jaan Uhelszki

Animal Collective

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:48:46 -0800

There aren't many groups like Animal Collective. The only bands that spring to mind are the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. As with both of them heavy weights, Animal Collective is a profoundly avant-garde project that just so happens to make some of the most hummable jammers of the 21st century. They drawn inspiration from an absurd number of influences, including but not limited to Brit pop, experimental noise, vintage psychedelia, minimal techno, industrial, golden oldies, post-hardcore, dub and world music. Far more important, however, is how Animal Collective has synthesized all this good stuff into a phantasmagoric brand of tribal pop that's not at all pretentious or overly cerebral. In fact, it shimmers with a uranium-enriched sincerity best understood by nervous teens all strung-out on first loves, energy drinks and hormones. Of course, this is an aesthetic that's taken the band years to develop. Most ears will find early albums like Here Comes the Indian and the underrated Danse Manatee too extreme in their sonic freakery, but more recent works -- Feels, Strawberry Jam, Merriweather Post Pavilion -- will surely blow away those craving impeccably well-crafted indie rock. - Justin Farrar

The Flaming Lips

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:27:50 -0800

Seven years into their career, things changed monumentally in 1990 for Oklahoma City's the Flaming Lips with the release of their seminal In a Priest Driven Ambulance. Fusing only bits of their endearing, off-kilter indie rock into a sonically intense and more innovative fuzzcraft of mid-tempo songs and walls of neo-psychedelic guitar drone, IPDA offered up such memorable pop thunder as "Unconsciously Screamin'" "Rainin' Babies" and "Mountainside." Their songwriting having drastically improved, each completed song brought new, succinct arrangements and different chord progressions -- yet the album as a whole had an incredibly loud, distinctive sound. Subsequent albums like Hit to Death in the Future Head and Transmissions from the Satellite Heart began yet another chapter in the Lips' ever-transforming career, employing more selectively the relentless yet blissful bombast of IPDA into beautifully orchestrated, stripped-down mega-productions of pristine guitar twinkle and LSD-impaired Beach Boys harmonies. (Transmissions also spawned the Lips' big moment in the mainstream sun with the ubiquitous "She Don't Use Jelly.") Since the untimely departure of guitarist/noise enthusiast Ronald Jones, the Flaming Lips have resembled more a pop-deconstructionist science fair than a rock band, with drummer Steven Drozd and founder Wayne Coyne working as synched-up visionaries rather than contributing members of the same band. 1999's The Soft Bulletin found them again on the cusp of disciplinary mastery, incorporating their bent inclinations and atmospherics even more subtly into their strangely familiar and narcotic brand of pop, while donning character costumes on stage. Their next release, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots followed the same path, albeit with even brighter production and a greater attention to detail. At its core, however, the record was a mediation on love, death and the assurance is life after almost unendurable psychic pain. On the Oklahoma City band's 2006 opus At War With The Mystics, spiritual leader and sonic ringmaster Coyne shows the sheer depth of his profundity when he casts his baleful eye outward, focusing his laser vision on current events; pointing a sharp stick at frothy pop icons, superficial thinkers, the abuse of power-both personal and political-and fanaticism wherever it shows up in culture. Their songs show that there's a lot more going on underneath those pink bunny suits than we ever imagined. - Rachel Devitt

Bjork

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:03:39 -0800

Bjork is hard to pin down and trace. Pointing to her pre-solo incarnations as a jazz singer, a Crass Records punk and an international indie-pop star with the Sugarcubes only shows a fraction of her depth. Since her Debut, in 1993, she has created a symbiosis between academic music and pop, her hands holding a score by Karlheinz Stockhausen while her feet dance to the faceless sounds of rave culture. Masterfully, her music never flies out into obscurity or stoops to obviousness. Working with innovative producers and remixers, such as Nellee Hooper, Howie B., Mark Bell, Matmos and, most recently, Timbaland, she has been able to consistently change strategies, keeping her sound contemporary, gently nudging at the edges of the mainstream. While she takes these adventurous turns through her career, her versatile voice is unmistakable. She displays wide emotional range from the contained rage of "Army of Me" to the explosive joy of "It's Oh So Quiet" to the ethereal bliss of "All Is Full of Love." While her music is always challenging, her fine art and screen side-projects are equally thought-provoking. For the Palme D'Or-winning Lars Von Trier film Dancer In the Dark, she won a Best Actress award for her leading role at Cannes in 2000. She would later collaborate with long-time boyfriend and fine art star Matthew Barney on the eerie and indulgent film Drawing Restraint 9. - Marc Kate

Sigur Ros

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 12:40:08 -0800

Sigur Ros may not realize they're the kings of post-Shoegazer (sorry, Mogwai), but perhaps that's a good thing. This Icelandic outfit creates interplanetary soundscapes that make Slowdive sound like Motorhead. Moaning guitars weep and howl over textured, ether-soaked guitar effects as an androgynous singer coos and croons wistful melodies of pure soul. Sigur Ros create the kind of transcendental music for those who appreciate aural escapism and white noise. Their songs somehow sound and feel like coming down softly upon endless Arctic sheets -- you clear off some snow from the surface to discover blue lights shining from beneath the ice. If ghosts get to listen to music, don't think for a second that they subscribe to the gloomy Goth ethic. It would make sense if Sigur Ros topped the music charts for afterlife listeners. - Eric Shea

Yo La Tengo

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:13:30 -0700

Since the mid-1980s, this Hoboken, N.J., trio has won the hearts of many with their eclectic, creative guitar/organ-driven sound. A perennial critical favorite, Yo La Tengo have consistently released engaging, challenging pop music that is defiant of trends, and they maintain a fiercely devoted cult following not unlike a modern-day Velvet Underground. Guitarist Ira Kaplan's assured, noisy and innovative guitar work, coupled with wife Georgia Hubley's sublime, angelic vocals, has made for some of the best Indie Rock of the '80s and '90s. May I Sing With Me (1992) lent the band a louder, bass-heavy feel as Kaplan began to extensively fixate on feedback, but as many bands throughout the decade became progressively louder, Yo La Tengo bucked that trend by recording successive albums that were increasingly subtle and varied. The organ-heavy grooves of Electr-O-Pura and the stark quietude of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out... have cemented Yo La Tengo's already burgeoning reputation among critics and college radio fans alike. - Charles Hodgkins

Magnetic Fields

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:13:29 -0700

Sharing an ethos with Bill Callahan of Smog, Stephin Merritt mines a personal talent for turning out wry, darkly beautiful tales in the Lo-Fi home-recordist tradition. Yet even without his signature irony and studio prowess, Magnetic Fields -- a name he's worked under since 1990's debut Distant Plastic Trees -- are an intuitive pop experiment rife with disarmingly well-crafted melody. Creating not only syrupy synth pop that draws textural comparisons to Brian Eno and Gary Numan, but also organic, acoustic-bred Indie pop complete with cello, flute, tuba, and his haunting baritone, Merritt is a stylistic and sonic archivist bent on bending others' aural signatures to compliment his own production talents and shadowy lyrical pretense. The results are often stunning, lending credence to Merritt's status as one of indie rock's most influential and appreciated talents. - Kelly Bauman

The Fiery Furnaces

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:12:05 -0700

Brother and sister Matthew and Eleanor Friedburger formed the Fiery Furnaces, after finding themselves both living in New York in 2001. With Eleanor on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Matthew on lead guitar, they managed to take a very traditional arrangement and turn it into one of the great surprises of 2003 when their debut, Gallowsbird Bark, was released. At a time when many of their peers were claiming to be influenced by the blues and post-punk, the Fiery Furnaces managed to take those influences and create a sound much more unique. From music-hall theatrics, to Captain Beefheart's chunky blues abstractions, from the bare-bones Velvet Underground drones, to sloppy classic rock in the vein of Royal Trux, ÃÂÃÂthe Fiery Furnaces just sound different than anybody else. Eleanor Friedburger's vocals are distinct, tough and when she wraps them around phrases like, "you've got a wing in your snaggle tooth, and you can't kick it back with no 80-proof," it all makes sense in a surreal rock 'n' roll way that happens when nothing suddenly means everything. The release of 2004's Blueberry Boat upped the ante and tripled the song length. Each tune is like a version of the Who's mini-rock epic, "A Quick One," but with rather idiosyncratic lyrics about pirates and blueberries. Bold, ambitious, twisted and above all, great songwriters, the Fiery Furnaces continue to keep things interesting. - Jon Pruett

Mercury Rev

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 09:54:14 -0700

Always on the coattails of (and suffering constant comparisons to) associates the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev have, in their own right, creatively produced cerebral, sometimes darkly atmospheric Indie Rock. Relying on orchestrations of guitars, clarinets, drums, and Jonathan Donohue's breathy, Dylan-inspired melodic rambling -- Mercury Rev stretch spatial arrangements into hyper-melodic, neo-psychedelic free-form.

Blonde Redhead

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:18:45 -0700

Since their inception in 1993, Blonde Redhead have released some of the most sonically interesting guitar-driven Indie Rock on the circuit. Originally incorporating the more melodic elements of Sonic Youth's dual guitar attack, the group created songs rich in dissonant texture and driving, urgent rhythms. The next inception of the group saw Unwound's Vern Rumsey taking over bass duties, imparting his driving, almost entrancing whirl of rhythmic attack and melody onto the band's 1997 release Fake Can be Just as Good. Currently, the trio have their own set of aggressively patient rhythms and tense, sometimes creepy melodies. Guitars blink on and off to the steady sound of maracas. Arrangements subtly swell then disappear into dark, rhythmic soundscapes. The only constant has been the shared vocals of guitarists Amedeo Pace and Kazu Makino. The latter's unmistakable shrieks and haunting, chant-like moans identify and set Blonde Redhead apart from other noise enthusiasts.

Sparklehorse

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:13:28 -0700

Sparklehorse is essentially the brainchild of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mark Linkous plus a revolving cast of cronies. They make strangely beautiful, beautifully weird music that draws from country rock, blues, and soul and adds a cut-and-paste sonic adventurousness to the proceedings, finally winding up someplace that can only be described as "different." Linkous has a penchant for subverting the hooks in his melodies, altering the vocals or piling heaps of sound effects, feedback, or seemingly random instrumental fragments on top of them. His densely ambitious music has gained him cult status in the U.S., but European audiences have embraced his vision and made him something of a star. - Tom Heyman

Super Furry Animals

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:55:30 -0700

For years, British bands have been trying to successfully merge Techno beats with Indie Rock. Super Furry Animals may not have been the first to try this, but they were definitely one of the very few that made sense of this hybrid. That the synthesized additions aren't an up-front and obvious addition to their music might be one reason why SFA pull it off with such effortless style. But it might also be the chemistry of players and their diverse musical tastes -- this quirky quintet sing in their native Welsh tongue (and English, as well) and blend an always unpredictable slew of sounds (dependent on their ever changing moods) that contribute toward a personalized psychedelic pop collage. Besides big beats, they have been known to incorporate Steely Dan samples, Prog injections, Punk riffs, Calypso drums, and whatever else seems to contrastingly complement the strong songwriting. - Eric Shea

Jason Lytle

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:30:04 -0700

Sparks

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:06:18 -0700

Sparks were doomed to obscurity from the beginning in their native U.S. Like Oscar Wilde and the turn-of-the-century decadents and dandies who inspired the Mael brothers, scandal both brought them fame and prevented the public from taking them seriously. Vocalist Russell Mael played the rock star with all the flamboyance of a peacock, while songwriter and keyboardist Ron Mael contrasted his brother's excesses with his ascetic scowl and Hitler mustache. The latter's favorite ploy has always been exposing people squirming in insecurity behind screens of wealth, vanity, professionalism and mediocrity.

Sparks enjoyed its first commercial success in the U.K. with 1974's Kimono My House, an album of neo-romanticism meets prog. rock, which reached number four in the U.K. In 1979, after a brief decline in popularity in Europe (and still little notoriety in their native U.S.), the duo called on the production talent of legendary producer Giorgio Moroder for No. 1 In Heaven, a celestial stairway of rapturous melodies heavily greased with irony and black humor, and which would later influence the synth pop of Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys. Though in the 1980s and beyond the Maels tended to settle for synth-driven chintz over rock 'n' roll substance, their music still retains the stinging wit that gives it savor. In 2006, the Mael brothers returned with Hello Young Lovers, an album of cheeky operatic prog. rock melodrama. - Chad Driscoll

Psapp

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 13:35:43 -0700

It's commonplace to call eclectic musicians "magpies," but London's Psapp really do recall scavenging birds. Their music bristles with odd ornaments like a nest trimmed with tinfoil and colored string. Members Galia Durant and Carim Clasmann keep their own nest well stuffed with audible baubles like Bontempi organs, water pipes and egg slicers. But while their starry-eyed sound can verge on the twee, Psapp never settle for being merely quirky. The unusual instrumentation and creative studio techniques -- Glasmann, an engineer with Can's Inner Space studio on his resume, knows how to make familiar instruments sound strange, and strange ones uncannily familiar -- serve as integral parts of the whole, not just bells and whistles. Stylistically, Psapp draw take their cues from bossa nova, Stereolab, Tom Waits and Marc Ribot, suggesting a kind of pastel steampunk. Since their debut EP, 2003's Do Something Wrong, Psapp's funhouse has proved a popular destination: the duo has recorded for Melodic, Tomlab, Leaf, Arable, Gronland, Wiaiwya, Rallye and Domino, and its music has been used in a Volkswagen ad and Grey's Anatomy, among other outlets. - Philip Sherburne

Deerhoof

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:54:51 -0700

San Francisco sugar and spazz noise-pop band Deerhoof formed in 1994 from Nitre Pit guitarist Rob Fisk and drummer Greg Saunier. Their quirky No Wave sound was augmented in 1996 by the addition of Japanese singer and bassist Satomi Matsuzaki, who contributed a childlike timbre that makes or breaks many a potential Deerhoof fan. They released The Man, The King, The Girl in 1997 and Holdy Paws in 1999. Fisk then left to form 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, prompting Half Bird, a rarities album of material from their earliest years. John Dieterich took over guitar duties and recorded 2002's Reveille, the first of the band's albums to reach a sizable indie audience. Second guitarist Chris Cohen joined in time for 2003's Apple O. Milk Man, the band's 2004 album, was a concept album about a banana-wielding character drawn by artist Ken Kagami. An MP3-only record, Bibidi Badibi Boo, and EP Green Cosmos followed. In November 2005, Runners Four was released. - Daphne Carr

Gang Gang Dance

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:11:25 -0700

When Gang Gang Dance started gigging around New York City in the early 2000s, they were the last band anyone ever expected to make a great pop album. Early shows -- no doubt inspired by fellow New Yorkers No-Neck Blues Band -- were half performance art, half mystical ritual, with the band deconstructing noise rock, homemade electronica, free jazz, hip-hop and world music from Africa and Asia. Drummer Tim DeWitt and keyboardist Brian DeGraw had previously played together in the Cranium, an experimental post-hardcore outfit from Washington, D.C. They were strange, but not like Gang Gang Dance. Then things started to change. Each new album documented a band striving to alchemically transform all the weird stuff mentioned up above into a novel and all-too-fantastical breed of dance pop. After two challenging albums, they succeeded with the release of God's Money in 2005. Over an undulating latticework of phantom bass drops, tribal percussion and crystal synths, vocalist Liz Bougatsos chirps, cries and coos like some kind of post-nuclear gypsy. In 2008 Gang Gang Dance upped the ante with the wonderfully psychedelic Saint Dymphna, which actually boasts a dancefloor anthem or two -- sort of. - Justin Farrar

The Books

Thu, 14 May 2009 10:47:57 -0700

The first volume of the Books' story takes place in 1999 in a New York apartment building, where Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto meet when they both happen to be living there. Cellist de Jong and artist/musician/cook/chemist Zammuto discover their mutual fascination with sound collection and collage and begin nosing through each other's extensive sample library. Fast forward to Volume Two, in which the Books relocate to Hot Springs, North Carolina, where they finish recording their first album in the basement of the inn where Zammuto is working. Their heady, hybrid concoction of acoustic instrumentation (banjo, cello, myriad guitars) and found sounds culled from sources such as DAT recordings, old films and the tape bin at the Salvation Army draws the attention of Tomlab Records and the acclaim of critics. Volume Three takes place in tiny, remote North Adams, Massachusetts, where the Books record both their second and third albums. The group's first-ever tour follows the release of Lost and Safe, featuring violist/fiddler Anne Doerner, a filing cabinet and accompanying video clips drawn from, among others sources, a tape of Japanese kids sumo wrestling in their living room. - Rachel Devitt

Panda Bear

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:11:25 -0700

Panda Bear first made his mark with Animal Collective before unleashing his solo effort on Paw Tracks. No, we're not recounting a role-playing game from the latest furry convention. We're talking about the Beach Boys-loving, loop-layering, indie-industrial-experimental fan o' pastiche drummer/singer/producer Panda Bear, a.k.a. Noah Lennox. Lennox is a Baltimore boy who, after spending his high school years making music and starting a label (the short-lived Soccer Star Records), moved to New York and formed the experimental, post-psychedelic outfit Animal Collective with guitarist Avery Tare (a.k.a. David Porter) in 2000. Fleshed out with the addition of Geologist and Deakin, the menagerie -- oops, make that group -- released a handful of critically acclaimed albums. In 2004, Lennox began dividing his time between performing and recording with the Collective and working on his own material. 2007 saw the release of his third solo album, Person Pitch. - Rachel Devitt

Wavves

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:43:43 -0800

Wavves is Nathan Williams, a sassy beach/skate punk from San Diego who spends long hours in his bedroom, crafting four-track fuzz pop that's as violent and primitive as it is ecstatic and catchy. Early blog-o-buzz drew a lot of comparisons to hip twee revivalists like the Vivian Girls, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Crystal Stilts, but Williams is way more blown out, spazzed out and tripped out. For the know-it-all record dorks out there, imagine early '60s surf pop filtered through the skate punk of the Descendents then fed to the Happy Flowers' squealing, temper-tantrum noise-rock. Or, to put it another way: if the Beach Boys are "The Warmth of the Sun" (one of their all-time classics), then Wavves is one of those fourth-degree sunburns -- a gooey swirl of radiant colors that's gross, yet oddly mesmerizing. That's some gnarly imagery for sure, but don't let it prevent you from checking this dude out. Despite a wall of sound built from layers of lo-fi tape crunch, Williams' first two albums -- Wavves and, uh, Wavvves -- possess all the touchstones of vintage California bubblegum: hooks that are sweet and simple, hummable melodies and a suburban-bred restlessness. - Justin Farrar

Rainbow Arabia

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:04:49 -0700

Telepathe

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:28:43 -0800

Terrestrial Tones

Mon, 4 May 2009 08:34:17 -0700

Avey Tare

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:17:15 -0800

Jane

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:44:28 -0700

The Scene Is Now

Fri, 2 Oct 2009 11:02:52 -0700

The Scene Is Now began as part of a wave of expressionist early '80s combos on Manhattan 's Lower East Side who took their aesthetic cues from the neighborhood's abrasive no wave scene. The movement made room in its jagged post-punk noise for warm melodies, rhythmic lilts and sunny dispositions that earlier nihilists of the Teenage Jesus ilk had seemingly outlawed (and later nihilists of the Swans ilk would soon ban again). Sharing musicians with far-lefty comrades Mofungo and occasionally enlisting Elliott Sharp on sax, they started out didactic -- sloganeering about the "struggle for production," swapping half-learned instruments and employing Mao Tse-tung's words. Though they named their 1985 debut Burn All Your Records, they were soon acknowledging musical history. Beach Boys fans with Dixieland-gone-free-jazz horn-blat and foreign movie-score time-signature tendencies, they roped in Appalachian folk, Hoagy Carmichael Americana, even Latin percussion. They might follow a wigged-out waltz about a salsa band in the barrio with an off-key sing-along about bumping into Allen Ginsberg at a First Avenue fruit stand. In the end, they proved bohemians could be people, too. - Chuck Eddy