Jupiter One
co-founder and frequent
Of Montreal
merrymaker
K Ishibashi
's second go-around under the
Kishi Bashi
moniker is as lavish and fanciful an affair as its flamboyant cover art would suggest, offering up a bountiful 14-track set of dense, multi-hued indie pop confections that lands somewhere between the clubby, blissed-out glow of "Sleepyhead"-era
Passion Pit
, the bedazzled Icelandic fairy realm of
Jonsi
, and the neon green fields of the
Teletubbies
.
Ishibashi
's violin steers the needle through a tapestry of classical-infused electro-pop that's as dense as it is effervescent; looping, pitch-shifting, arpeggiating, and swirling about like a fly drowning fitfully in a vat of simple syrup.
Lighght
requires a sweet tooth, but at least it lets you know what to expect early on, thanks to the criminally sugary, one-two punch of "Philosophize in It! Chemicalize with It!" and "The Ballad of Mr. Steak," the latter of which builds to an earworm of a chorus that declares "Mr. Steak, you are grade A."
follows suit with the meaty "Carry on Phenomenon," a lyrically impenetrable, impossibly catchy blast of
ELO
worship that, like all of the songs on the tightly packed rainbow canon that is
, skillfully applies a dizzying array of bells and whistles to what is essentially a simple, relatable, and reliable pop melody. Whether he's flirting with
Incredible String Band
aloofness ("Q&A"), getting sucked into a whirlpool of loopy, Island pizzicato ("One Upon a Lucid Dream [In Afrikaans]"), or just reveling in the sheer, ridiculous ornateness of the world he has created ("Song for the Sold"), he's doing so without the encumbrance of subterfuge. For
, even the finery is from the heart. ~ James Christopher Monger