James Figurine
Mistake, Mistake, Mistake, Mistake
Plug Research Records
New Wave is so 2006. Sorry, '80s, but it's ours now.
That dreamy, cheesy synth pop that late-20s hipsters dance to with Pabst in hand is enjoying its resurgence. Sure, most hip indie kids were in elementary school when New Order and Joy Division
rocked the dance floor, but our slightly older
counterparts, the ones who were actually listening to music when those bands came out,
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have taken it back.
James Figurine, who has many monikers-the most fun of which being "the guy from Postal Service who isn't Death Cab for Cutie"-has released a very yellow, very synthesized new album. The boy obviously spent a lot of time with black nail polish as a kid and his new album
Mistake, Mistake, Mistake, Mistake
relies heavily on those quick-riffed, computerized tunes of the past.
If it weren't for the lyrics,
Mistake
could blend into the otherworldly pop of past without anyone knowing. Its got the sound that makes you say, "Gosh, I haven't heard this in years" to a potential hookup that knows more music than you do. Lyrically,
Mistake
isn't the best album in the world. Figurine is better when someone else puts fancy words to his beat-driven sounds, but the lyrics here have a junior high school air that makes them both notable and fun.
Mistake
starts out with the "Bizarre Love Triangle"-esque "55566688833," an ode to a girlfriend about fighting, via text message. "We tuned off our phones and fought face to face like it was the '90s again" pulls the song out the past, dates it and manages to make its obsolescence so imminent it's almost irrelevant.
Not a single word on
Mistake
is emoted with anything but distance and a touch of cheerful disdain. Figurine lets the music's changes show his sadness in an album that's so lost in its own feelings it's nearly cast them aside.
