Oskar Tennis Champion

Momus is the master of eccentric lyrical directions and somewhat complex pop songs to act as transport for said lyrics. His singing is also dedicated to and suited for delivering the lyrics in a suitably mannered way. Thus, this is more a musical theater production soundtrack than a simple pop album. (The lyrics are online; URL provided inside. Lots of other great stuff there as well!) (By the way, Momus recently fled the U.S. to escape Bush and now resides in Japan, whose particular musical traditions and personalities - Cornelius, Kahimi Karie - influence a couple of tracks.) As I listened closely to this album to review it, I fell more and more deeply in thrall of the genius of Momus. Highly recommended!

1. Creaky, spooky, with Japanese accents
2. A song about being a love-starved, jilted pirate (but not a sea chantey)
3. Queasy waltz dedicated to promoting infidelity as a way to increase the supply of love
4. Wonderful, glitchy ditty asking a lover to love for a "good" reason - and to please ignore the Scottish lips
5. Oh my god! An ode to sperm, detailing its many properties and qualities. Again, the music is queasy and glitch-ridden
6. The centerpiece - an anti-modernism joke worthy of Jacques Tati (and mentioning him) delivered in an ironically modernist manner just as Tati did
7. German-language baroque-electro-glitch tribute to Franz Schubert
8. About a Scottish character - the narrator, how he was such a brilliant entertainer
9. New Wave song props up lyrics about "The Last Communist, alone in the Soviet Union"; perhaps the New Wave is a bit early 80s, where the end of the USSR was more late 80s; still, the setting of the reactionary and wistful lyrics to contemporaneous music is inspired
10. Lovelorn puppet (marionette) decries his owner's being more a puppet than he (the puppet) is
11. Holy cow; now a song from the viewpoint of Beowulf
12. Mechanical tune about mechanization
13. A bizarre, remorseful tune about exile to Antarctica with a lapdog, that also takes a whack at the irrelevance of the Situationists
14. Trees as figurative (very figurative) saviors; sad, cold tune
15. Using some "new vaporware" - Palm Deathtop - to track one's dead friends in a database until one joins them again
16. <Silence>
17. Blippy instrumental of some not inconsiderable duration