Cornelius Fantasma

(Matador 300)

Yeah, I don"t know why, exactly, but I just love it when folks from other countries take American "Pop" styles and do their own thing with them. What usually comes out ends up subverting the original source into something new and different.

Cornelius Fantasma, a Japanese boy-man in love with all things pop (but especially Brian Wilson, the Music Machine, the Beatles and Beck), has made a wonderful debut album that ends up being something totally different than the sum of its sources. It"s a playful, genre-shifting CD that rewards your attention.

One-man-band-mixologist Cornelius mixes up some invented sampled dance rock, as well as Beatles-y acoustic strums (the pretty 'Chapter 8 Seashore & Horizon'), exhilarating power-pop ('Freefall'), and a few Beach Boy-inged tracks-- there"s even a song called 'God Only Knows'-- to basically sum up his love for the mid-to-late "60"s era of American Pop (his recreation of Pop Icon poses, like the cover shot from Pet Sounds, in the CD booklet shows he might even be a bit obsessive about it), and it"s infectious; Cornelius" stateside debut is fresh, wild stuff, occasionally offputting in its explorations, but a must-hear for the new stamps it puts on some old sounds.

--- Moulty Mullins