The new self-titled album from Gary Olson, front-man of The Ladybug Transistor, is a set of chamber pop every bit as elegant as numbers from The Clientele and The Left Banke. It's one of the real hidden gems of this spring, and the kind of release that reaffirms a listener's respect for this genre. Out now via Tapete, Gary Olson is a sort of mini-masterpiece.
Gary Olson here lets something like "Giovanna Please" pull him into the ether. Sounding like Scott Walker and Michael Brown, Olson owns this completely, with "Postcard from Lisbon" being just as good and stately. While these numbers, like the best here on Gary Olson, strike a tone that's sort of resigned and world-weary, there are other cuts that are more jaunty, of course. "A Dream for a Memory" marries a twang to the indie-pop figures, while "Afternoon into Evening" is all C86 riffs wrapped around a Go-Betweens-like composition. These are catchy tracks too, as is the superb "Some Advice", a selection that suggests debts owed to Love, Shack, and The June Brides. Gary Olson doesn't have a dud on it, and it maintains a mood that varies just enough to keep an appreciative listener enraptured over the course of its running time.
Gary Olson is out now via Tapete Records.
More details on Gary Olson via the official Facebook page.
[Photo: Åke Strömer]