I must say there’s something about Tori Kudo’s music that has always appealed to a certain side of my personality. There’s a childlike innocence to the ineptness of the musicians he has perform with him, yet at no point do I get the feeling that they don’t know what they’re doing, rather it feels like Kudo meant this all along. This latest offering is no different, Kudo has written twenty-odd gorgeously wide-eyes pop songs and then had them performed by people who, to the casual listener might sound like they’ve never even seen an instrument before, never mind played one. I think the best comparison, at least to these ears, would be Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, and just as Beefheart and his chums made blues sound like it was coming straight out of a parallel dimension where time and key signatures simply don’t exist, Tori Kudo does the same for happy-go-lucky folk pop. Some might describe this as outsider music, but like Daniel Johnston and Jandek this doesn’t really do justice to the quality of the tracks, I think that’s a nice label for confused journalists to use, as this really isn’t accidental or forced, rather this is pop music simply done in a different way and yet again Kudo has made something utterly beautiful. If you want to hear an alien perspective on something very familiar, and hear music uncluttered by the trappings of our invasive culture then look no further. Highly recommended.