MUSIC REVIEWS

SWINGSET
Young Armstrong
(Bambini Records)

Like those new Levi's, Swingset's four-track EP, "Young Armstrong," released on Kyoto's Bambini imprint, has that "cut-in-the-'60s" sound of a by-gone golden era of sophisticated, gentle pop, but transmuted through1999 Shibuya sensibilities.

Swingset's sound is "popsy" European mood music that the instant you hear it conjures up a mental map of kindred artists who have come before - a musical tree of connections between similiar schools of sounds: French pop and Serge Gainsbourg, Stereolab and Pizzicato Five, Burt Bachrach, and Simon and Garfunkel.

The EP-titled first track is unapologetic fun without being silly. If the comedy "Austin Powers" was a documentary, then "Young Armstrong" and "Loafer" could pass as the film's incidental music: A fragment of the mind of a young Japanese muso and his idea of the original swinging London, Baby.

While their music doesn't have any of the melodic songcraft that made Burt Bachrach's tunes easy-to-hum gems for an older generation of housewives, it has the legacy of his trumpet and organ arrangements and the optimistic glint of Bachrach's era. Like Pizzicato Five, it's the "European, mondo pop-o-rama," reconfigured, that gives tracks like "Four" their laidback energy.

The organ dominates on this EP, and because of this it would be easy, as record companies and music critics are fond of doing, to call Swingset the Japanese Stereolab (even though there are many other bands in Japan that are closer to the mark). Despite some obvious similarites, it's not an accurate description. Still, if Stereolab are looking for an opening act for their next tour, they might want to give Swingset a call. They might even learn a thing or two.

Where Swingset's talent really shines is in songs like "Five Days," a down-and-out, blue cloud of a tune that touches your rawer, romantic nerve. The play of aching guitar and cello over the quiet rhythm is a song for years of Blue Mondays and post-breakup heartaches. But it uplifts rather than brings you down.

"Young Armstrong" is beautiful in its rainy day mood and evokes that pleasant lonely feeling that very different-sounding bands like the Auteurs have been so good at doing in the '90s, and likewise the Smith's, in the '80s. It's music for when you sip hot mocha on a wet, crispy autumn day and aimlessly flip through glossy magazines in a post-shagadelic chill. Groovy, baby. 7/10
-RISA HATTORI AND NICHOLAS BLACK

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